


Summer's Day, Winter's Kiss

by ProphetStill_IfBirdOrDevil



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (the fact that there is a tag for that omfg), 1950s, 1950s boarding school au, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - Teacher/Teacher, Bad Parent John Winchester, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel Has a Religious Family (Supernatural), Castiel and Dean Winchester Falling in Love, Castiel and Dean Winchester First Meet, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel and Dean Winchester in Love, Dean Winchester Has Issues, Gay Castiel (Supernatural), Gay Sex, Gym Teacher Dean Winchester, I'm Sorry William Shakespeare, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Religious Castiel (Supernatural), Sexuality crisis because it's the 50s and they might lose their job, Slow Burn, Teacher Castiel (Supernatural), Teacher Dean Winchester, Teacher/Teacher relationship, destiel au, don't worry John is dead but Dean has father issues to deal with, english teacher castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:15:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28717152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProphetStill_IfBirdOrDevil/pseuds/ProphetStill_IfBirdOrDevil
Summary: It's the late 1950s. English Teacher Castiel Novak is peacefully doing his job at a religious all-boys boarding school when all of sudden a new colleague arrives in the middle of the school year. They get along well and become friends quickly, but secretly Castiel knows that P.E. Substitute Dean Winchester awakens some very sinful desires in him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 64
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written a multiple-chapter fic in literal years, but there was sudden inspiration over Christmas break that resulted in this. The first drafts of all chapters are written already, so you won't have to worry about this never getting finished.  
> This is set in the 1950s and I have done my best in research about the period in general and the queer community at the time, but I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies (especially regarding slang) - I wasn't alive back then, but I assume neither were you, so that should be alright ;)  
> Anyways, here comes the first chapter, enjoy!

I was 27 years old when I first met him. It was late October, a mild fall day that I will never forget. The trees on the yard were covered in leaves that were shining in their most beautiful colours; those that had fallen down already had been spread across the grass by the wind. It was a beautiful atmosphere, almost romantic.

Romantic, yes, that was everything about it - Even though it was never supposed to be. We both resisted the tension for so long, but looking back at our very first encounter, everything about that moment reads like straight from a romance novel.

It was an ordinary day at work for me. I knew that a new teacher would arrive sooner or later, a substitute for a colleague from the P.E. department who had been unlucky enough to break his leg only a month into the new school year. So, I knew we would get a new colleague shortly, but I didn't know who he was, or that he would arrive that day.

It was a Friday afternoon. My classes for the day were finished; I was ready for the weekend and crossing the yard on my way to the library when a car pulled into the driveway.

A car that I didn't recognize. I had never been good with cars, all I knew was that it was black and well maintained by an owner who seemingly loved it a lot. I stopped and watched, waited for the driver to get out, to show himself.

I watched him park, and when the door finally opened and that stranger set his foot onto the yellow gravel of the yard, it took my breath away for a second. Out of that car stepped the most beautiful man I had ever seen. And that is not an exaggeration. I had seen beautiful men before; I had been attracted to beautiful men before.

Ever since my early teenage years, I had noticed men that seemed extraordinarily beautiful to me. Men that had come to my uncle's church, men in the newspaper or on magazine covers that I only stole glances at when walking by the kiosk on my way home from school, men on the streets or at the stores. Countless occasions, countless men and countless beautiful faces that had made me feel things, dwell on thoughts that I would have never dared to think before. Countless of those thoughts, of fantasies that had made me pray to God to forgive me such sinful ideas.

Yes, I had seen beautiful men before. But this one that got out of that car that mild October afternoon did not compare to any of them.

He closed the car's door and turned to look around, trying to find orientation. After a moment, his eyes spotted me and he lifted his hand to wave a short greeting. I waved back, a smile on my face that must have looked incredibly stupid.

He walked up to me. My eyes were almost glued to his body; they were following every step he made on the crunching gravel. I couldn't see much of his body, but as little as his suit gave away, I knew what was underneath must have been good. And his face! There was no way this indescribably beautiful face came with a second-class body. His face was perfectly symmetrical. A truly adorable nose sat in-between the greenest pair of eyes ever known to mankind, covered in dozens and dozens of freckles. Below, his soft, pink lips, so perfectly shaped. So kissable, I allowed myself to think.

At this point, I had never kissed a single person in my entire life; I never even been any close to it. The reason for that was quite simple: The only people I had ever wanted to kiss had always been men.

I caught myself staring at his lips for a bit too long. I couldn't let him notice, so I brought my eyes up to his again. He had arrived right in front of me now and was standing there with a big smile on his ridiculously beautiful face.

"Hi!" He grinned, showing off his ridiculously white - and perfect - teeth. 

"Hello," I greeted him with a polite but distant smile. Don't let him know, I thought. I could never let them know. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," he said. "Actually, sorry, I should have ..." he didn't finish the sentence, offered me his hand instead. "Dean Winchester. I'll be substituting some P.E. classes for the next few months."

"Castiel Novak," I introduced myself as I took his hand, "English teacher. Pleased to meet you."

"Oh the pleasure is mine," he grinned. "So, we'll be colleagues?"

Maybe I could have known right then and there. I could have overthought that very first handshake as much as I overthought everything else about this man for the following months, and I probably would have gotten to the conclusion that it was just a fraction of a second too long for a brand-new-colleagues handshake.

"Yes," I answered instead. "It looks so. Can I help you find anything?"

He seemed relieved at that offer. "Actually, yes, that would be great!" He said. "I'm supposed to meet a Mr. Price?"

James Price was the school's principal, a man in his mid-fifties. He didn't have much hair left, and the most prominent detail about his face were the reading glasses he always wore right on the tip of his nose and pushed further up whenever he needed them. Overall, he did an okay job as a principal. For my taste he was always just a bit too focused on pleasing the rich parents of our students and a bit too little on their actual best education, but we got along since he always was happy with my work and I had learned very early to keep my opinions to myself. It wasn't a hard thing to do. I kept a huge part of my personality locked away at all times, keeping my mouth shut about a little disagreement in school management was a trivial task.

I told my brand new colleague to follow me and led him through the building, deliberately not choosing the fastest way to Mr. Price’s office. I might not have been able to act on my undeniable attraction to Dean in any way, but that didn't mean that I couldn't use a little trick to get a couple more minutes to talk to him and admire that beautiful face.

I led him through the main building of the school, the biggest one that accommodated most of the classrooms and on the higher floors the teachers’ offices. I could have chosen the way shorter passage through the inner courtyard and up the stairs on the back of the building, but as I said: Why not steal another look (or two). So, I led him through the front entrance and all the floors on the inside that were now empty. It was a Friday afternoon after all, and most of the students were either occupied with one of the multiple clubs and voluntary activities or completing their work for the week over in the library.

“Have you been teaching here for long?” he asked after we had walked a couple of steps next to each other in silence. It was nothing but some casual small talk, I was of course aware of that, but for some reason him initiating a conversation did get me excited.

“Not exactly long,” I answered, “It’s my third year here”

“Well that isn’t exactly new either,” he said with a little smirk.

After admiring that smirk on his face for a moment, I replied.

“No,” I chuckled, “But some of the older colleagues have been here for decades. Compared to that, three years is nothing.”

“The older colleagues,” he repeated with an understanding nod, “Makes sense. What’s the ratio there?”

“The older to younger colleagues ratio?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Well,” I chuckled, “I’m the youngest teacher here, and pretty much the only one under 50. There was Andrew of course – the one you’re substituting for. He’s only slightly older than me, but that didn’t safe him from breaking his leg”

“How’s that?” he now asked. “Working exclusively with people that much older, I mean?”

“It’s alright,” I said. And it was the truth, it was alright. There was a generational gap of course, most of my colleagues had been alive for both world wars, and some had even fought in them. They had made experiences that I just couldn’t relate to. I remembered the second one, yes, but from the perspective of a child. My memories were so much different from the ones my colleagues had to live with, and that sometimes really showed in our approaches to various topics, including our teaching methods. There were differences, and sometimes they saw nothing but a naïve boy in me – even though they never said it, I knew they did. It was in the way they looked at me, how they talked to me about certain things, in a way that assumed that I wouldn’t understand anyway. But in the bigger picture, I got along with most of them. I respected them, and most of them respected me. It was alright.

“Isn’t it kind of lonely?” he asked another question as he followed me around a corner.

“Mh,” I made, “It can be, yes. I mean we do get along, but there still is a big age gap. I’m closer in age to my students than to most of my colleagues. But you know …” I shrugged, “I can handle it”

Truth was, I was rather happy about that certain distance. It made hiding easier. Maybe it was kind of lonely that way, but on a positive note, I never was close enough with anyone to have to face questions about love, about women. Things you talk about with your close in age friends. Yes, maybe I was kind of lonely, but at least there never was the risk of anyone finding out about my sexuality.

He smiled at me. And oh boy did that smile make me feel things!

“Well, now I’m here,” he smiled. “I could be some company from your generation, if you want me to”

 _If you want me to_. Something about that phrase was almost ridiculous. Of course I wanted his company. Though, I wanted his company in ways that he definitely didn’t have in mind when he said that. I wanted his company, preferably in my bed, without that stupid suit on him that denied me even the tiniest look, without that coat, with nothing but his beautiful face and that amazing smile on it, with that spark in his eyes as I lean in to kiss him-

But I didn’t let my mind go there. I _couldn’t_ let my mind go there, not right now, not around him. Not around anyone.

“I’d love your company,” I said and returned a smile, trying my best not to let him notice anything about the implications my mind had attached to that sentence.

He looked over to me with a grin that didn’t make it any easier to repress those thoughts.

“Great,” he said. “Do you live on school grounds?”

“Yes,” I answered. There was a separate building in the back, housing the teachers. A small apartment, no rent to pay, it got cut directly from the salary. A few of the older colleagues, those with families, lived down in the village, but most of us stayed right there at the school. “It’s convenient. Most of us do, actually. Will you be living here as well?”

“Yeah, I will,” he confirmed. “It’s the easiest. And I only got that contract for a few months, I really couldn’t be bothered to look for another place to stay”

“You’re not from around the area, then?”

“No,” he chuckled. “No, I’m not. I’m from Kansas.”

“How did you end up here, then?” I asked. Two states over, for a substitute job as a P.E. teacher that was planned to last for only a few months, that seemed somewhat unreasonable to me.

“Ah well,” he smirked, “there was a vacancy, nothing was holding me back home, I got the job and here I am.”

“Alright, but you decided to move two states over for a couple of months, to be a P.E. substitute?” I formulated the part I couldn’t follow on.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know, that’s kind of a long story. I’ll tell you some time. Is there some kind of bar around here?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, there is. Down in the village.”

“Amazing,” he grinned. “You’ll have to take me there”

“Okay,” I agreed with a smirk. I kept telling myself that he was just being nice, that he was just trying to make a friend at his new job, but I couldn’t help my mind creating the image of him and I in that bar, talking, joking and laughing. Flirting. Flirting the entire evening over maybe a bit too much alcohol, and what that could lead to…

Before I could get my mind even deeper into an analysis of what his words could have possibly meant, we arrived in front of Mr. Price’s office.

“Here we are,” I said as we stopped right in front of the door. “I’ll leave you to it, then”

“Okay,” he said. “Thank you for showing me the way”

“You can buy me a drink for it,” I said. And the exact second those words had left my mouth, I wished I hadn’t said them. I should have known better. Because that was what you got for allowing your mind to slip into strangely homoerotic daydreams about your brand-new colleague you just met. Being perceived as weird or awkward, or both, right on your first encounter. Amazing, really. Way to go.

Contrary to my expectations, he didn’t show any negative reaction at all.

He chuckled, then looked at me with one last grin and said: “Maybe I will.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said. “Working with you, I mean,” I added immediately after. There’s only so much subliminal flirting you can include in a conversation like that and still get away with it. 

“Me too,” he smirked. Then he turned around to knock at the door.

As I watched him disappear into our boss’s office, I thought that it definitely wouldn’t be easy to have him around. That man had managed to make me all awkward by only that casual conversation just now; I couldn’t even imagine what actually going to a bar with him would do to me. But on the other hand, I thought, maybe I really could use some company my own age. Maybe I could handle my attraction towards him. I for sure could steal a look now and then, without him noticing, without making it awkward.

I was so insecure that moment. Ridiculously flustered by a cute guy showing up unexpectedly, and ridiculously oblivious about everything that had happened during our very first conversation. Little did I know that this man who had me so flustered and confused would turn out to actually be the love of my life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have one regret about this story, and it is that I couldn't let Dean drive his beloved Impala. I was halfway-through describing him getting out of it when I realized ...  
> Please let me know what you think, all kinds of feedback are appreciated!  
> If you liked it so far, the next chapter will be up by Friday :)


	2. Chapter 2

The next time I saw him was right the next morning at breakfast. I was happy to see him of course, but at the same time I felt slightly uncomfortable looking him into the eyes after some inappropriate thoughts I might or might not have had about him the night before.

When I entered the dining hall and sat down in my usual spot at the teacher’s table, he was there already – right across the table from me of course, how should it have been any different? He was right there, looking up and greeting me with yet another grin.

“Good morning,” he greeted me.

“Morning,” I smiled at him. “You have found your way here, I see?”

“I always find my way to food,” he smirked. “No, I was given a rough timetable yesterday and worked it out”

I smiled back at him, about to answer but I was interrupted by Charles, one of the colleagues from the maths department who was sitting on Dean’s right hand side. They must have talked a bit before I arrived, I thought. Of course. A new colleague suddenly appearing at the breakfast table, it would have been weird for him to not introduce himself and make some small talk.

“Have you two met before?” Charles asked.

“We have,” I answered politely – even though I was not exactly happy about his interruption. “We ran into each other yesterday when he had just arrived”

“Yes,” Dean agreed, “He was kind enough to show me the way to the principal’s office. I would have been completely lost otherwise”

“Oh I’m sure you would have been alright,” I chuckled, “You would have worked it out just like you managed to find the way to the food”

Dean laughed at that. It was the first time I heard him laugh, and really, his laugh was about as beautiful as the rest of him.

“Well, I see you’ll get along,” Charles commented on our exchange. “Some company among the young folk, isn’t that nice?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s refreshing.” Refreshing, yes. It was indeed refreshing to have somebody my own age to talk to instead of someone who could just as well have been my father. This somebody’s ridiculous attractiveness and its effects on my ability to concentrate, on the other hand, were not that refreshing. Exciting, yes. But definitely not refreshing.

Charles apparently decided that was enough conversation with “the young folk” and turned back to his food and some other colleagues, a decision that I was more than happy about.

“Speaking of some company your own age,” Dean now said, “I was wondering, would you mind showing me around a bit later? Mr. Price didn’t get to that yesterday and I could use gaining some better orientation around the place.”

I didn’t even debate for a second. “Sure,” I said immediately.

We chatted a bit more, mostly he told me about his conversation with Mr. Price the day before. He had told Dean about the work that awaited him the following week and given him detailed information about the classes he would be teaching and what the intended contents were, but pretty much overlooked anything else. Dean told me about how he had only figured out the way to his apartment by chance (after receiving the key only after asking for it), and his way to the dining hall this morning had been led by the groups of teachers and students all heading the same way. All that was very typical behaviour for our principal, as I knew, but I felt sorry for Dean being thrown into the cold water like that.

After breakfast, we went right into the campus tour. Starting from the dining hall I showed him around the communal areas for the students, the tract with the dorm rooms in it, the offices and classrooms until we ended up in the inner courtyard.

We stopped there and sat down at one of the benches together. I watched Dean looking around, taking in all the impressions of the old building and the surroundings.

“It’s a big school,” I said after a moment, “Quite a lot to memorize. I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”

“Yeah?” he chuckled. “Probably my contract will expire before I’ll remember the way to the study room”

“It’s not that far from the dining hall,” I chuckled, “That should be alright. There’s food involved, after all.”

He let out a short, beautiful laugh again.

“You know what, you’re absolutely right. I’ll just put the food in the centre of my orientation and everything will be fine.”

“It probably will be either way,” I said. “And if you need any help, you can always ask me. I wouldn’t mind showing you the way again”

“Really,” he asked with a smirk, “That wouldn’t get on your nerves?”

I chuckled. “I’m a teacher. I’m used to explaining things more than once”

“Oh so I’m a student to you?”

“Well, we’re _the young folk_ , after all,” I laughed.

Dean laughed with me for a moment, then he only looked at me with a grin on his face.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“27,” I told him.

“Huh,” he made.

“What?” I chuckled.

“Looks like I just stole your title of the youngest teacher around”

“Yeah? How old are you, then?”

“26,” he smirked. “Beat you to it”

“Yeah you know, you can have it,” I laughed. “I’ve had it for three years, about time someone else becomes the baby of the staff”

“Oh don’t you think you’re suddenly the big brother of the staff,” Dean laughed. “It’s probably nothing but a couple months, you’re still a baby. We’re both in this”

“Probably,” I agreed. “When will you turn 27?”

“In January,” he said. “What about you, when is your birthday?”

“September,” I grinned. “So, it may only be 4 months, but you’re still the baby of the staff”

“Fine,” he chuckled. “I guess I’ll have to accept my fate”

“A reasonable decision”

We stayed on that bench for a bit longer, only a couple of minutes, sitting in silence. I gave him some time to look around him. He seemed impressed by his surroundings, and the expression looked good on him. But to be honest, pretty much everything would have looked good on him.

Later we completed the tour; I showed him a few more small spaces that were on the way, how to get to the library, and the pool and tennis court in the back (probably places that would be of much more use to him than the library). The last place we passed was the chapel that was located slightly aside to the other buildings, then we returned to the building housing the teachers together.

“Which room is yours?” he asked as we were standing right at the front door of the house.

“I’m on ground floor,” I said. “First one to the left. 1A. What about you?”

“Third floor,” he said, “3B. You’re lucky, though. Got no stairs”

I laughed. “You’re a P.E. teacher,” I said. “You should be able to handle some stairs”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, “I should, and I am. But just because I’m teaching P.E. doesn’t mean that I _enjoy_ climbing up to the third floor to get to my bed every night”

“I see,” I chuckled.

“Yeah,” he smirked. “Anyway, what are you going to do today?”

“I’ll be in the library,” I said. I spent most of my free time in the library. Well, to be exact, I spent most of my work time in the library as well, at least when I wasn’t teaching. I did have an office of course, all the teachers had a guaranteed office space, but mine was a shared office with another colleague from the English department, and even though we did get along quite well it was simply impossible for us to work in one room. This issue may have been due to his habit of mumbling to himself while grading and me being overly sensitive about any kind of noise when trying to concentrate, or maybe it was only because I simply preferred the atmosphere of the library (No, it was definitely about his mumbling). In any case, the result was me working in the library most of the time.

“Oh you got work to do?” Dean asked.

“I’ll be preparing a few lessons,” I said. “Then maybe stay a bit longer and read just for fun. What about you, though? You’ve just arrived, will you be unpacking?”

“A bit, yes. But I didn’t bring that many things, so that should be finished pretty quickly. Maybe I’ll walk around the garden again, taking another look at the area. We’ll see.”

“That sounds like a nice plan,” I smiled. “I guess I’ll see you around, then?”

“Yeah,” he smiled back at me. Right as I thought this was the end of our conversation for now, he added: “Hey, uhm … Would you be up for going to that bar tonight? I still owe you a drink”

I knew that wasn’t what it was, but for some reason, it felt like being asked on a date. And I knew I shouldn’t think about it that way, not even for a second, but I did anyway. I allowed my mind to pretend, for just a moment, that this hot piece of man with the beautiful face and the freckles and the incredible green eyes had just asked me on a date. For just a moment, I lived in a world where something like that wasn’t impossible, where I could be myself, could be open about my sexuality, about my attraction towards him, a world where I could go on a date with my hot new colleague without having to fear losing my job because of it.

“Yeah,” I smiled at him, “I’d love to”

*

Quite a couple of hours later, I was sitting in the bar down in the village, a drink in front of me and Dean at the other side of the table. It was a busy Saturday night and the noise level was accordingly high. I had to lean in to be able to talk to Dean at all, and after the first few sentences we had both just stayed in that position, leaned in over the table, our faces brought closer together, in order to have a conversation.

Unnecessary to add, my mind had an amazing time interpreting this scenario differently. I caught myself more than once imagining how I could just lean in a bit further and kiss him over the table. How easy it would be to press my lips on his for just a second, so incredibly easy. He was so close, after all. His lips were so close, but at the same time an eternity away, impossible to ever reach.

We talked about this and that. He asked me about the job, how I liked it, how the colleagues and the kids were.

“You said you would tell me your story,” I reminded him. “About how you ended up here”

He nodded and took a big sip from his own drink before even saying a word.

“Yeah, right,” he then started. “Well, as I said, I’m from Kansas. I used to work in the family business”

“Oh so you’re not actually a teacher?” I asked and took another sip.

“I’m not,” he chuckled. “Though, I do have some experience with training teenagers. I was a voluntary coach for our local sports club, that was essentially the same job. Only that I didn’t get paid. Thinking about it, I should have started teaching way earlier”

I chuckled. “What about the family business, though? Your family probably wasn’t that happy about you just leaving to be a P.E. substitute?”

“Mh,” he made and took another (big) sip from his drink. “The family business doesn’t exist anymore”

“Oh,” I said. “How come?”

“Well,” Dean sighed, “It never was a passionate project of mine, you know? I just did it because it was the family business and I’m the oldest, so I pretty much had to. My father never even questioned it, for him it was always clear that I would be in the business. And it was alright, but I never … I mean, it just didn’t make me feel like it was the right thing for me.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I assume your father didn’t just watch you walk away”

“God no,” he said. “I would have never had the courage to face him and tell him I don’t want this. But Dad, he … well he died. Earlier this year. And after he was gone, I just … I mean there was no reason for me to keep the business going. He loved it, and I always respected it, but it wasn’t for me, and my brother wasn’t interested in it either, so we had some difficult family and staff meetings, closed it off.”

I looked at him for a moment, thinking about what to say.

“I’m sorry about your loss,” I chose. “But I understand your decision. I think I would have done the same thing”

“Thank you,” he said. “And yeah. It just seemed like the best choice, you know? Then after everything was finished, I started looking for something else to do. I was checking job offers in all the newspapers I could get my hands on, because I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do. I never was allowed to try things out, because there never was a choice for me. So at some point, I saw that this place was looking for a P.E. substitute, and I am sort of a P.E. teacher, so I thought why not try my luck and gain a couple months of experience.”

“Mh,” I understood, “And additionally, you got to get away from home for a while. A way to escape the memory of your father.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s another reason. It was nice to just lock up the house and leave for a while. Makes me feel free, in a way”

None of us said a word for another moment. On my part it was because I simply didn’t know what to say. I understood him, but I had the impression he was still grieving his father, and I simply didn’t know what to say to that – or if I even should say anything to it. Because another impression I got was him not really wanting to talk about his father.

So, we just sat there in silence for a while. I watched him playing around with the glass in his hand, swivelling it, tapping one finger against it. He looked up at a moment I didn’t expect him to, and our eyes met.

His deep green eyes stared directly into mine, and just a second into that eye contact, he smiled at me.

I swallowed hard, gripping my own glass a bit tighter. Those eyes, Jesus. That smile.

“You’re in for another drink?” he asked.

It took me a second to respond. I silently stared into his eyes for a bit longer before I managed to articulate an answer.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I shouldn’t, if I don’t want to show up to mass tomorrow with migraines”

He raised an eyebrow. “Mass?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “It’s Sunday. We got mass at the Chapel every Sunday morning”

“And we have to be there?”

I chuckled. “It’s a religious school, Dean. What exactly did you expect?”

We agreed on not getting another round in favour of a migraine-free mass the next day, but that didn’t stop us from staying at the bar for another while, talking some more. On my part, personally, staring a lot more. That one moment of unexpected direct eye-contact had done something to me that I couldn’t define, but I couldn’t get his eyes out of my mind anymore.

And so it happened that multiple hours later as I was lying in my bed in my dark bedroom, it was his eyes before anything else that were on my mind as I slid my hand down my pants. His smile was there, of course, as well as his shoulders, his hips, his chest. His hands, and his neck. God, his neck. But before all of that, the most prominent image on my mind as I came into my hand that night with a voiceless “Dean” on my lips, his incredible green eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was chapter 2 for y'all; chapter 3 will be up on Tuesday :)


	3. Chapter 3

To a certain extent of my surprise, Dean did indeed show up in time for mass the following day. Though, he did not seem to be extremely happy about sitting in a cold chapel at 8 am on a Sunday morning. He obviously wasn’t used to it, but him sitting there on the bench behind me with a rather tired expression on his face would become a habit.

Just like Dean, I did show up for mass slightly tired and not fully listening to the sermon, my mind still hanging in some of the rather sinful thoughts I had had about Dean the night before. Sadly enough, that would become a habit as well.

Speaking of habits, there were quite a few things that started to become some sort of rituals between us the following weeks. Every morning he would greet me at the breakfast table, smiling at me before taking a giant sip from his coffee. Dean wasn’t a morning person, I soon learned. Best was not to talk to him at all before his first cup of coffee in the morning, and frankly, knowing that detail about him did explain his typical Sunday-morning-mass-face extremely well. Every night for dinner we’d meet again, in our exact same spots opposite each other at the teacher’s table. He started stealing carrots from my plate with a grin one night after I mentioned I didn’t exactly like them. I always let him, even right the first time, without batting an eye.

We’d go down to the bar together every other night, having a drink and chatting about this and that. He made it a habit to pay for my drinks, and he wouldn’t stop, even though I repeatedly told him he didn’t need to. Some nights we would leave the bar early and take a walk around the village before returning to the school grounds.

Dean had started teaching the Monday after he had arrived, and he had gotten a hold of his new job rather quickly. He seemed to enjoy it, judging from how he told me excitedly about some of his lessons when we were at the bar and just talking about our days.

About two weeks after meeting Dean for the first time, I was teaching one of my English classes when a thought about him implanted itself into my brain permanently. And by permanently I mean, it was even more permanent than my constant daydreams involving him that creeped their way into my mind at every possible or impossible occasion, by God even more permanent than the image of him and his beautiful eyes that appeared in the dark every single night as soon as I closed my eyes and always ended the same way: with a sticky mess in my right hand.

It was just a regular English class in 11th grade, the normal procedure. We were currently discussing poetry, Shakespeare’s Sonnets to be exact – one of my favourite topics to teach, simply because I had a thing for Shakespeare’s Sonnets and enjoyed reading them, even apart from teaching, in my free time.

The one I had chosen to discuss with my class that day was one of the best known ones. Sonnet 18, one that I had read and analysed probably a few dozen times throughout my time of teaching and my years as a student before that, and even though I had always liked it, it had never caused the emotions in me that it did that day.

My eyes followed along the words of the poem printed out on the page of the book in front of me as I listened to one of my students reading it out loud, and with every word a picture formed itself on my mind. Dean. Right as the boy in the second row read out the first line, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”, I started thinking about him, and as the poem went on, I continued recalling the imagine of his face, his beautiful face, smiling at me. A picture started painting itself on my mind, a picture of Dean the very first time I met him, his little smile as he introduced himself, the beautiful scenery that the fall created all around him.

After the boy had finished reading the last line, it took me a second to force my mind back into the present, back into this classroom. Away from Dean.

“Thank you for reading,” I finally managed to turn back into a teacher. “Now, this is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18. A typical Shakespearean, or English, Sonnet. The characteristics of which are? Mr. Hughes?”

The boy I had asked immediately sat up a bit straighter as he heard his name.

“A Shakespearean Sonnet typically consists of 14 lines, Sir,” he answered. “There’s 3 quatrains followed by a Couplet with the volta line coming after line 12. The metre usually is an iambic pentameter.”

“Correct,” I said. “Very good. Thank you.” The boy showed a little smile as a reaction to my praise. That was one of my favourite parts of teaching. I always made sure to let the students know if they had done something well and seeing their proud reaction to doing good always made me feel kind of proud of their learning process as well.

“Now,” I continued, “As for interpretation. Does anyone have a rough idea of what the message of this Sonnet might be?”

After a moment of hesitation, another one of the boys raised his hand. As I allowed him to speak, he started articulating his thoughts.

“I think,” he started, “that the speaker says he can’t compare his lover to a summer’s day because the lover is way better than a summer’s day. He explains the flaws that a summer’s day has, and that the summer inevitably ends at some point, whereas the lover is like an eternal summer whose beauty will live on in this poem forever”

“Yes,” I smiled at him, “Very good. Thank you!”

We continued discussing the poem and its interpretation as well as stylistic devices used, the rhyme scheme and the foot and metre, every detail about it, including the different volta line that did not follow the rules for an English Sonnet, but my mind had long drifted away again. It had wandered off to that image of Dean again when that boy had told me about his interpretation of the sonnet.

Even though I knew the poem, and I had worked with it and its interpretation a dozen times before, I _knew_ the interpretation, that day, I _felt_ it for the first time.

If I had ever wholeheartedly agreed with William Shakespeare in my life, it was in that very moment. Because when I listened to my student talking about how the lover is so beautiful not even a summer’s day can compare, I revisited that image of Dean Winchester in my mind and immediately thought, “Yes”.

Yes, I thought, Shakespeare was absolutely right with this one. What was a beautiful summer’s day compared to _the_ Dean Winchester, the most beautiful man I had ever met with the most beautiful face I had ever seen? What was the fresh green of grass on a summer’s day compared to the infinite green of Dean Winchester’s eyes? What was the heat of the sun on a summer’s day compared to the warmth that Dean Winchester’s smile made me feel, compared to the heat he was able to arouse in my entire body?

No, Shakespeare was absolutely right. Who needed a summer’s day when Dean Winchester was right there to look at?

That thought stayed with me for the rest of the day, throughout all my remaining classes. I kept thinking about Dean, the unique beauty that he was, and Shakespeare’s words. About the person that Shakespeare had had in mind when writing this Sonnet, that person that historians didn’t know who it was. It was incredible, I thought, nobody knew who it was Shakespeare had described, and yet he had reached the goal he had declared in the poem. This person’s beauty was living on in the poem, forever, even hundreds of years after their death.

I realized that, and then thought about Dean again. About Dean, and about how his beauty was definitely worth being preserved. If Shakespeare could immortalise his nameless lover in a poem, I thought, so could I. I didn’t know Shakespeare’s mysterious person, but could they really compare to Dean? I doubted it. So if this unknown person some hundred years ago was worthy of being immortalized in a love poem, then Dean Winchester definitely was as well.

I was of course aware that I was not William Shakespeare but instead nothing but an American English teacher with a love for poetry and a big crush on my colleague, but the urge of at least trying to write a poem about Dean stayed strong. It didn’t let me focus on anything else. Not even hours later, as I was sitting in the library that afternoon trying to get some work done, it didn’t go away. No, the thought stayed right there on my mind, prominent as it was, stubbornly keeping me from working through the stack of essays in front of me.

After several minutes of staring at one sentence and not being able to think about anything else than Dean and his worthiness of being immortalized in a poem, I put the current essay back on top of the stack and leaned back with a sigh. I stared at the wall across the room for a second, then I grabbed my notebook out of my bag and opened it at a blank page in the back.

For a few moments, I only stared at the blank page in front of me, chewing on my pen.

I recalled the image of Dean and closed my eyes for a second, taking in all the impressions, all the details about him.

The pen met the paper, and I started writing. It was nothing but notes that I took, a bunch of incoherent keywords that came to my mind when thinking about Dean. Some of them were circled, others underlined, then crossed out and double-underlined again.

With half the page covered in keywords about Dean, I stopped and looked at my notes again. I read the words, then read them again, and again.

And then, the pen met the paper again, this time putting the words together almost automatically. My hand just wrote them down, connected them in the right order as my brain told to do it, even though I didn’t do it consciously. I just did it, with nothing but that image of Dean smiling at me on my mind.

As my hand pulled back again, there was a poem on that page in the back of my notebook.

_Emerald green eyes  
staring right into my soul  
Countless freckles on your face  
like stars on a clear night’s sky  
A smile, warming my heart  
like the sun that you are  
in the universe that is my life  
with you in the centre  
  
_

I read through it once, twice, and a third time, then nodded slightly. I was mostly content with my creation, at least content enough to focus on the work I was supposed to do again for another while.

I closed my notebook and moved it off to the side to bring my attention back to the stack of essays that was still waiting there, silently judging me and my crush that, admittedly, maybe started to get slightly out of hand.

Not that I wouldn’t have known that. No, I was fully aware of it being a stupid risk that I didn’t need to take. Admitting to myself that I was attracted to my new colleague was one thing. That was the part that wasn’t a problem. The stupid part was, allowing myself to constantly give in to daydreams involving him. Staring into his eyes for a little too long at the bar or making thoughtless comment like asking him to buy me a drink right at our first encounter. Fantasizing about him while masturbating and having to look him into the eyes right the next morning, acting like he was nothing but a usual colleague. Writing poems about him. Jesus Christ.

And not only was it stupid, it was dangerous as well. I knew about the risk, about the consequences my stupid little crush would have if anyone would find out. I knew that it would be a scandal that would for sure cost me my job, ruining all hope to ever be employed as a teacher again because people would just know, and no school would allow someone like me anywhere near people’s children. If I was particularly unlucky, maybe I would end up in a mental hospital or any other institution trying to cure me with whatever new form of therapy they would have come up with.

On a positive note, I knew that at least my family wouldn’t consider me being a shame. Well, some of them probably would. But my uncle who I had grown up with, I knew that he would accept me just the way I was. Because that was how God created me, he always said. My uncle, faithful priest that he was, used to say that a lot to me as a child. You don’t like your nose? That’s a pity, because God gave it to you. You can’t run as fast as one of your friends? No, but you have other talents that God wanted you to have. “Castiel,” he had always told me, “There are many miracles at God’s hands, but the most amazing ones to me are the people he created. Every single one of us, a unique masterpiece, just like God intended us to be.”

I hadn’t told him about my sexuality, I hadn’t told anyone. But I still knew that if I had told him, he would have been fine with it. I always remembered that one time he had said to me, after people had been arrested at a gay bar and their names had been published in every newspaper in the area, causing them to lose their jobs and ruining their entire existence, he had said to me, “It’s unfair. Those people are doing nothing wrong, it’s just who they are. It’s who God intended them to be, and everyone should accept God’s choices, don’t you think, Castiel?”

Without knowing it, he had given me the best advice of my life that day. He had given me something to hold on to. Whenever I started doubting myself, I remembered my uncle’s words.

You’re not a sinner, I reminded myself so often. This is who God wanted you to be.

With a sigh, I returned the essay to the not-finished stack. There was no point in attempting to do this right now.

Instead, I grabbed my notebook and returned to the page on which I had scribbled the poem. I read through it again.

Then, I put my pen back down and added one more word to the list on the page.

_Fordbidden_ , I wrote down.

I read the word a couple times. I circled it.

“Hey,” I suddenly heard a voice right next to me, “What are you working on?”

I startled, did I knew that voice well enough.

I looked up. Emerald green eyes were staring right into mine.

Dean was standing right in front of me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I formally apologize to both Shakespeare and my Literary Studies prof. That was not what I meant to do with that lecture's notes but whatever ...  
> All feedback is welcome and appreciated :)  
> Next chapter on Friday :)


	4. Chapter 4

There he was, standing right in front of me in the studying area in the back of the library, his deep green eyes staring at me, a smile on his face, awaiting an answer. My notebook was still lying open in front of me, all the words associated with him and the entire poem, right there, right in front of his eyes.

In sheer panic I started looking for words and couldn’t find any just as several present students saved me.

“Psssshhht!” an entire group reacted to Dean’s interruption all at once, causing him to look up and throw an apologising smile into the room.

This second of distraction gave me the chance to hastily close the notebook and push it off to the side before Dean looked down to me again.

“It _is_ a library,” I whispered with a shrug.

“Sorry,” he whispered back, then pointed toward the chair opposite me. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I replied and Dean walked around the table and sat down right across me with a smile. He grabbed into the bag he had been carrying and pulled out a book. Leaning back in his chair, he quietly started reading.

I eyed him for a second, then decided to take the opportunity and finally get some work done. Before, it had been the thoughts about Dean that were constantly distracting me. But now, even if the thoughts were still there, the notebook was off to the side and there was no way I would voluntarily open that page again with the subject of the words written was sitting right there in front of me. No way.

So, I started working on my un-graded essays one more time, and this time I actually was able to take more than one sentence in. I really could focus for the first time the entire day. Well, if you ignore the few seconds I took every now and then to glance over to Dean and steal a short look of him being sunken in his book. Even when doing a trivial thing like reading a book he looked like a model, I thought. It was truly incredible.

With him seeming so focused on his reading, I felt safe when stealing a look or two. I got more and more confident doing it - I may have even subtly licked my lips at one point – was I convinced he wouldn’t notice.

Except that one time, he did. The exact moment I glanced over to him to steal yet another look, he looked up as well. Our eyes met, for just a fraction of a second. I felt my face heating up, I was obviously blushing, so I immediately turned back to the essay in front of me and made sure to stay focused. I didn’t dare to look up again for the rest of the afternoon; the risk of Dean catching me staring at him was way too big.

Now I couldn’t help overthinking that entire situation. Had he seen me blush? And if he had, did he wonder why I was blushing? Stupid question, of course he did. Everyone would. What was his most likely explanation for me blushing? Was this the first time he had noticed me looking at him? Had he noticed before? Had he, God forbid, seen me licking my lips while staring at him?

There I sat, making myself nervous with all those thoughts while pretending to work on an essay. Had I calmed down just a bit, though, and looked up one more time instead of driving myself insane with the questions, I would have noticed that Dean himself was trying to hide a faint blush on his cheeks by leaning down closer into his book.

The next time I looked up again was quite a while later. It was almost time for dinner, so I started packing up my things. My sudden movement caused Dean to look up as well. He eyed me with a questioning look.

“Food?” I whispered as I stood up. He immediately packed up his book and stood up as well. Together we left the library, walking next to each other in complete silence until we reached the hallway.

Right as the door to the library had closed behind us, he turned to me with another one of those incredible smiles.

“I hope I didn’t disturb you in your work?” he asked.

“No,” I immediately said, “I enjoy your company.” That was the truth, after all. The fact that I enjoyed his company maybe a little too much, and therefore didn’t focus on much work as much as I should, was something that he didn’t need to know about.

That was when we decided to make the library a regular thing. I was working there every afternoon anyway, and Dean started to come by after his classes most days to greet me with a beautiful smile and sit down in the chair opposite me, pull out a book and start reading in silence.

I loved having him there. Despite his presence causing me to turn away from my work in order to steal a glance at him now and then, I was still able to focus way better than when he wasn’t there at all. Something about him sitting there with me had a calming effect on me.

It would have been even more calming without me overthinking again and again. I regularly looked up to see him sitting there and asked myself why he did it. A small part of my brain tried to convince me it was because of me, that he came here just to be able to sit with me – something that I would definitely have done, no doubt of that. Every time that thought came up, though, the more rational part of my brain chimed in to argue, calm down, he’s just reading. He’s not into you. He’s just here to work, like a normal goddamn person.

Yeah, he’s just doing his work, that was what I told myself over and over again. And if I hadn’t been as overwhelmed as I was by his beauty and his simple presence, it might have dawned on me way earlier that Dean Winchester, a P.E. substitute, did literally have no professional reason at all to sit down in the library and read a book every single afternoon of the week.

*

Several weeks into Dean’s new job, it was December by now, we decided to take a walk together one mild Saturday. I didn’t have a lot of work to do over the weekend and Dean generally didn’t prepare classes on the weekend, so his suggestion to walk around the school grounds and talk a bit was a welcome option of Saturday activity.

“You’ve been here for over a month now,” I asked as we were walking up the hill in the back of the property, “Are you happy with your decision?”

“Yeah, I think I am,” Dean replied. “It’s not that much different from my work with the sports club back home. But I don’t know if I’m made to be a teacher”

I turned my face to eye him for a moment.

“Why would you think you’re not?” I asked.

Dean put his hands into his coat’s pockets as he sighed.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s just … I think that maybe I get too close to those kids. In the sense that I worry too much. See them struggling with their teenage problems and maybe relate too much, you know?”

“And you think that’s not part of being a teacher?”

“I don’t know,” he said again. “Probably I should just focus on what I’m paid to do, which is teaching P.E. And everything else, that’s none of my business, it shouldn’t be my problem. I shouldn’t spend time worrying about some of the boys just because they have struggles that remind me of when I was their age”

“Mh,” I made, thinking about what he had said. “No, I don’t think so”

“No?” he asked, visibly surprised.

“No,” I repeated. “You know, those boys, they’re first sent here when they’re very young. They spend most of their teenage years here, with their parents far away. And of course there are friends, but I think that sometimes, at such a young age, you just need a parental figure now and then. And with their parents not available, a teacher who cares about their problems and maybe even relates isn’t a bad thing to have around.”

Dean visibly thought about that for a second.

“Yeah,” he then said. “That does make sense. So, are you a teacher who relates as well?”

“I’d say I am, yeah,” I chuckled. “Though, I probably relate to a different kind of teenagers than you do”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked, pretending to be offended but not being able to hold back a chuckle of his own.

“Nothing,” I explained, “except that I’m an English teacher, and you’re doing P.E.”

“Ah,” Dean made understandingly. “You know, when I say I relate, I usually don’t mean the popular guys who are really good at sports”

“Who do you mean then?”

Dean looked around with a quiet sigh before he answered.

“The ones with father issues, mostly,” he then said.

For a moment, I only looked at him in silence. I didn’t know what to say. It’s not that I hadn’t suspected him having a difficult relationship with his father. Right when he had mentioned him the very first time we went to the bar together, I had had the impression there was something about him that Dean didn’t want to talk about. So, I wasn’t exactly surprised, I just didn’t know what the right thing to say would be.

“I mean, I just …” Dean started talking again, “The entire thing about trying to make your father proud but just never being enough … I just know how that feels. And I have the impression that there are quite a few boys here whose fathers have some unrealistic expectations for their sons’ future.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “There definitely are quite a number of those.” Then, after just a second, I added: “Do you want to talk about your father?”

Dean looked over to me. “What for?” he asked. Not in a repellent way, more like he seriously didn’t see the point.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, “Maybe it could help”

“My father’s dead,” he said neutrally.

“I know that. Does it change anything, though?”

Dean looked at me in silence for a moment, then he turned back with a sigh. As we continued walking, he started talking.

“Dad was …” he started hesitantly, “Let’s say, he had a clear idea of how things should go in his opinion, and that wasn’t negotiable. I think it was just because he’s been through stuff, you know, and he wanted to make sure we would have it better, but … I mean, I like to think that he was just trying to protect us. But in doing so, he took every last bit of freedom from us. He told us what to do and expected us to listen. And I did. I did everything he ever asked for, because all my life, all I ever wanted was to make him proud, give him a reason to be proud of me.”

“But he never was,” I concluded with a quiet sigh.

“No,” Dean breathed. “What I did never was enough. It always was, why can’t you do this, why didn’t you do that. Why can’t you take care of your brother? Why can’t you keep the house clean? Why won’t you work more hours, why aren’t you more enthusiastic about the business? Why are you so ungrateful, and why can’t I trust you even with the simplest task? Why did you let you brother go? I just … You know, he expected a lot from me. All my life, he expected everything from me, even though I was just a kid. I don’t think he ever understood that I was just a kid. And he didn’t really let me be a kid, not after Mom died”

“Your Mom died?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Yeah,” he answered quietly. “I was four”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said without looking at him.

“Thank you,” he said. Nothing more.

“What about your brother?” I asked after a moment. “Do you have a good relationship?”

At the mention of his brother, Dean’s mood switched instantly.

“Yeah,” he said, now with a hint of a smile on his face. “We’re close. We were really close as kids already; I mean I basically raised him. Then when he refused to get into the business after he finished school, we did have some differences … I mean I totally got his point of view, he had no interest in working there, but neither had I. And I had to do it, so I felt kind of betrayed when he just wouldn’t. But we figured it out. Him and Dad didn’t really, but Sammy and me, we’re fine.”

He made a short pause, now full-on smiling.

“God, I’m so proud of him,” he then continued. “He’s just gotten into law school. He’s just really smart, my little brother. Someone had to get the brains of the family, I guess”

I turned to him again.

“Don’t say that,” I said softly.

“No, I mean, it’s true,” he shrugged with a smirk, “But I got the handsome genes, so that’s alright”

I couldn’t help chuckling at that. Yes, I thought, you got the handsome genes for sure. If that wasn’t the handsome genes that I didn’t know what was.

“Still,” I said, “Don’t say you’re not smart. I think you are”

He looked at me. No more joking, nothing but a sincere look into my eyes.

“You think?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” I smiled at him. “I got the impression”

He now smiled back at me, and we kept that eye contact for a moment. Just two teachers standing there out in the fields behind the school, smiling at each other.

Finally, it was me who looked away and that way broke the eye contact. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it, God no. I did it because I got nervous. I did it because if I had looked into his eyes like that for a little longer, I couldn’t have guaranteed for me to not lean in and kiss him. Having him smile at me like that was just too much of a risk, I thought.

I cleared my throat as I looked away from his deep eyes that could have bound me in their spell for eternity.

“So,” I then asked, “Have you got any other family?”

Dean chuckled and shook his head.

“You’re incredible, Cas,” he chuckled.

I hesitated. _Cas,_ he had called me. Obviously a shortened version of my name, but it made me wonder where he might have picked that up – or did he make it up himself? No one had ever nicknamed me. All my life, it had always been _Castiel_.

“Cas?” I repeated with a smirk.

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I can call you that, right?”

“Sure,” I immediately said. Of course he could. He could, and I loved it. I would have loved any nickname he could have given me.

“Great,” Dean grinned. “I just thought, the _Castiel_ seemed a bit posh. Nothing for casual conversations, you know?”

That was true, my full name really did add kind of a posh vibe to every conversation. It really wasn’t casual. And, as I added in mind for my future fantasies involving Dean, _Cas_ was definitely way easier to moan in bed than _Castiel_.

“I see,” I chuckled. “I’ve never been given a nickname before, but I like it”

“You’ve never been given a nickname?” he asked. “People have just been calling you _Castiel_ all your life?”

“Well, yes,” I smirked. “That pretty much was the point of the name.”

“You know what?” Dean said. “I’ve been telling you so much about my family; it’s your turn now. Tell me about the people that came up with _Castiel_ and used it as an everyday-name for an infant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your lovely comments so far <3  
> feedback is, as always, welcome and very appreciated. Next chapter coming on Tuesday :)


	5. Chapter 5

„It’s a religious name,“ I explained. “Castiel. It’s an Angel’s name, actually”

“Seriously?” Dean asked. The way he was looking at me showed sort of a confused surprise, as if he hadn’t been expecting something like that at all – and to be fair, he probably hadn’t.

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Why would I make that up?”

“So, you’re from a religious family?” he concluded.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “I grew up in church”

“How do you grow up in church?” Dean asked. “Given you’re catholic, it’s not like your friendly neighbourhood priest has got a little family with a bunch of kids named after Angels to raise.”

I chuckled. “Well, let’s be real, there definitely are cases like that.”

“That is true,” Dean laughed, “But you’re not one of them, I assume. Otherwise you probably wouldn’t be teaching at a school like this one.”

“Right,” I chuckled. “I was raised by my uncle, who is a priest. The religion obviously runs in the family, and growing up in that surrounding, it really was … omnipresent, I’d say”

Dean eyed me for a moment, visibly debating if he should ask the question he had in mind. “What about your parents?” he then asked, obviously having made a decision.

“Mh,” I made and took a second to look around the area. “That is a very good question”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “It’s a good question?” he repeated. “What, you don’t know?”

“Well, I know something,” I said. “It’s just not a lot. I was given into my uncle’s care at a very young age because my parents both struggled for employment. It was the great depression, after all, and they eventually had to move around, leaving me with my uncle but sending as much money as they could. Until one day, they suddenly stopped without any explanation, never to be heard from again.”

Dean stared at me for a moment.

“You don’t know what happened to them?”

“Not really, no. I do know my father later enlisted. The most likely explanation is that he just didn’t come back. My mother, though … I have no idea what happened.”

“God, I’m sorry,” Dean breathed.

“It’s alright,” I shrugged. “I don’t even really remember them. The only parental figure I ever knew was my uncle, and maybe his housekeeper. Who was an outstanding cook, by the way. You would have loved her.”

“You bet,” Dean chuckled. “You know I have a thing for food. But you, you were a spoiled child?”

“By far not,” I laughed. “Though, I would say that I did have a happy childhood. I was lucky enough to get an education. And I’m really grateful towards my uncle for it”

Dean eyed me for a second.

“Is that why you ended up at a religious school like this one?” he asked. “To make your uncle proud? To honour the family?”

“I’ve never thought about it like that,” I answered, letting his take sink in. “Maybe it is, yes.” And yes, maybe it was. I actually wasn’t sure about that but Dean did have a point, and he definitely had experience with trying to make your father figure proud.

“How is your relationship today?” Dean asked further. “Are you still in contact?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “We always got along well. My uncle’s always been a great man. Very understanding; and he can give the best advice. We exchange letters regularly, and I try to make a visit at least once a year.”

“That’s great,” Dean said, and I knew he meant it. “I’m glad you get along”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “Me too”

I wanted to add something to that, for some reason I wanted to tell Dean that I was sorry he hadn’t been that lucky with his father, because I knew that was what was on his mind. In the end, I didn’t. Maybe not bringing it up again was the better option, after all.

None of us spoke for a minute or two. We were just walking next to each other in silence, walking across the fields, now on the way back to the school again but still far enough away for the buildings to be hidden behind a group of trees.

We exchanged a short smile. Dean was the one to look over to me and show me one of his incredible smiles, and I smiled back almost automatically. His smile did this to me. There was something in it that just made me smile back at him, no matter what.

“You know,” Dean suddenly broke the comfortable silence we were sharing, “I think the name suits you”

“Does it?” I asked with a glance over to him.

“Yeah,” he smiled. “Yeah. There really is something angelic about you.”

I didn’t reply to that, only showed him another smile.

He smiled back.

On the outside, everything was good. We were just two men having a weirdly personal conversation about our family backgrounds and relationships with our father figures.

On the inside, my mind was going insane that very moment.

_Something angelic about me_ , he had said. What was that even supposed to mean? And why would he say that? That was definitely not something you told your platonic colleague in a platonic conversation between two platonic male friends, so _why on earth_ would he say that?

There were two voices inside my head again. One was excitedly screaming, “because he likes you! Because he feels the same way about you as you feel about him!” while the other one sounded as if it was rolling its none-existent eyes as it sighed, “Because he’s bad with words and awkward about a compliment. Jesus, calm your gay panic down”.

We didn’t really talk any more that day. He just left that comment about me being _angelic_ , whatever it might have meant, standing, keeping me thinking about it for the rest of the day. Even late that night I was lying awake, constantly thinking about the word _angelic_ and trying to come up with just one reasonable explanation for why he could have possibly said that.

Even the following weeks, I kept thinking about that little phrase he had said. We didn’t spend much time together during December as it was a busy time for me with lots of exams to be held and graded before the Christmas break.

It was not as busy for Dean as it was for me, with him having exams too but them being of practical nature that did not require much work outside of the lessons. He did show up in the library every now and then to quietly sit with me as I was working, and I got more and more used to it with every time he suddenly appeared out of nowhere and occupied the chair opposite me with his typical grin.

My mind regularly brought that thought up, at the most improper occasions. As I was standing in front of a class while teaching, when my eyes met Dean’s over dinner or during mass on Sunday morning as my mind slowly drifted away from the present, it was suddenly there on my mind, just that one word: angelic.

At some point, as my head almost started aching from thinking about it so much, I pulled out my notebook and opened the page in the back that had my notes about Dean and the poem on it. I stared at it for a while, then sat done the pen and added one more word to the page: _?angelic?_

*

My endless wondering and overthinking finally came to an end later in December, about a week before Christmas break. It was morning break on yet another busy day of teaching, and I was walking around the hallway close to my classroom while enjoying a pack of M&Ms that I had bought during one of my walks down to the village a couple weeks ago. Maybe it even was a relic of a purchase I had made right at the beginning of the school year, before I had met Dean.

Before I met Dean, that sounded so weird. Before I met Dean, that was a whole different version of myself. A whole different time. Sure, it was a time only 3 months ago, but at the same time it seemed like an eternity away.

Dean had become such a permanent part of my life, he was there so much, and even when he wasn’t around, I still had him on my mind all the time - Just like I did that moment as I was walking around the hallway, chewing on my M&Ms with relish. There were only a few left in the pack by now since I had subconsciously grabbed one after another and put it into my mouth while daydreaming about Dean yet again.

Another thing I had subconsciously done, I had started picking out only the green ones. One might say, so what? The green ones are probably his favourite. But no. No, my favourites were the brown ones. At least those had been my favourites the last time I had opened a pack of M&Ms before a pair of beautiful green eyes had started to become a permanent image burned into my mind at all times.

Said pair of beautiful green eyes was now suddenly staring right at me as the beautiful person they belonged to came walking around the corner and greeted me with the familiar grin on his face.

“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing, patrolling around the hallway?”

I chuckled.

“Hey,” I greeted him back. “Just walking around a bit, getting my head free. The final days before Christmas are always exhausting”

“I see,” he grinned.

“What about you, though? What are you doing up here?”

“I’m right on my way back down to the gym,” he explained, “I had to get another class list from administration for my next set of practical exams. Had to walk all the way up here, during break, can you believe it?”

“Dean, we talked about this before,” I laughed. “You’re teaching P.E., you really shouldn’t be complaining about having to take some stairs”

“Right,” he joined in on my laughter, “And I told you before that just because I’m teaching P.E. doesn’t mean I have to _enjoy_ taking stairs”

“Right,” I chuckled. “In that case, you deserve a treat because of your exhausting journey.” I offered him the pack of M&Ms – at least the few that were still inside.

He took a peek inside the pack to see that the only colours left were red and yellow. Then, he brought his eyes back up to meet mine with another grin.

“Are those the ones you don’t like?” he asked.

“No,” I chuckled, “those are the ones I haven’t eaten yet. That can change pretty fast, though, so if I were you, I’d hurry up taking some”

“Okay,” he chuckled and reached inside the pack again. Then, he stopped. “Which colour do you like better?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Which one do _you_ like better?”

“Mh,” Dean made as he shrugged. “I don’t know”

“Really?” I chuckled. “You ask me that when you don’t even know about yourself?”

He looked at me for a second, a cheeky grin on his face.

“Yeah,” he then said. “You know, that’s kind of my thing. Not wanting to choose.”

I stared back into his eyes, not quite understanding what he was saying.

“What?” I asked with another slight chuckle.

“I mean,” he said, his incredible green eyes still staring into mine, “That liking both options is pretty much what I do. You know?”

I stared, and I stared more. I stared for another moment, and then it clicked.

I finally realized what he was trying to tell me.

Before I could answer, though, the school bell impolitely interrupted our moment. Dean winked at me – he seriously winked at me - before he threw a single red M&M in his mouth and walked past me with his typical charming grin.

“Liking both options is pretty much what I do”, his voice echoed inside my head as I was staring at the empty wall.

Dean was a man who liked “both options”. He liked “both options”, and he had just _winked_ at me.

_Well, shit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now things are starting to happen! yay!  
> thank you all so much for your comments, kudos and subscriptions!   
> Feedback is, as always, welcome and appreciated - I love hearing from you!  
> Next chapter coming on Friday :)


	6. Chapter 6

I didn’t know how to process this new piece of information. Knowing this little detail about Dean changed everything. This wasn’t only about my crush and my secret fantasies and daydreams anymore. This wasn’t just about _me_ anymore, no, now there suddenly was a second player in this game.

Fair enough, the second player had been there from the very beginning – I just hadn’t realized he was in the game. All this time I had thought, or had rather tried to convince myself, that it was just me. That Dean was that your average heterosexual male in his mid-20s, that we were just being friends. Maybe not even friends but instead rather the only two colleagues close in age who spent their free time together for the sake of social interaction. 

Now, knowing that Dean _liked both options_ , as he had said; and the fact that he had _told_ me he did … it changed everything.

I was sure that Dean had had a reason to tell me. At the time, you didn’t walk around telling people you weren’t straight. You just didn’t. You made sure only the right people knew, and that included not randomly telling your colleagues.

Though, Dean had told _me_ , and that had to mean something. He definitely wanted me to know, I thought. It hadn’t slipped, he had deliberately decided to say it, and he even had rephrased it to make it perfectly clear to me. He had _definitely_ wanted me to know.

Now that made me wonder: Did he know about me? And if he did, how had he found out? Had he picked up something? Had he caught me staring at him at the library without me noticing? Had he seen the page in my notebook when I was so sure he hadn’t?

And if he didn’t know about me, what could have been his reason to tell me? Telling me was a risk, after all, even though he had done it in such a cryptic way. If he didn’t know about me, why would he have decided to take this risk, to let me know?

So many questions, so many thoughts were running through my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about it the entire rest of the day. Having to sit through half a dozen of classes was pure torture, and even when I sat with him for dinner and he smiled at me like that again, there were so many questions on my mind.

_What does it all mean, Dean?_ I kept asking in my mind. _What does it all mean?_

That night, I lay awake for hours. Staring up at the ceiling in the dark, I was still thinking, still wondering what it meant.

I tried to recall every single interaction we had had, every time I had talked to him, every time he had smiled at me.

I remembered the handshake when he had first introduced himself. The way he had smiled at me, the way he had held my hand - and how it had been just a millisecond too long.

I remembered how I had told him to buy me a drink without thinking about it, and how he had reacted to it. How his reaction had been so different from what I had expected, from how a straight man would have reacted. How he had actually invited me to the bar later, how he had bought me that drink, and many more since then.

Then I started thinking about the time we spent together in the library on a regular basis, how he was just there, watching me work. He had no reason to be there, except for him actively seeking my company. But from a professional perspective, he had no reason at all to be in the library that much.

I thought about our conversations. About the way we interacted, how we looked at each other. About the multiple times we had just stopped talking and stared into each other’s eyes for a while. About the way he smiled at me, grinned at me, every time I saw him.

And I remembered that one time he had called me _angelic_ , and how that had left me so incredibly confused.

And that moment, in the middle of the night as I was lying in bed in my dark room, staring up at the ceiling, I realized.

It wasn’t only me.

My unrequited crush on my new colleague was in fact not unrequited.

He liked me back.

_Dean Winchester_ liked _me_ back.

And that realization scared me to the bones.

*

A sleepless night later I was sure that this was the only explanation for Dean’s behaviour that made sense, but at the same time I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t believe that someone like Dean, someone so beautiful, someone with that face and that body, would like me.

Dean was undeniably attractive. His body was one of a sporty P.E. teacher, he was well-built, good-looking. The perfect symmetry of his face and his charming smile, combined with his incredible green eyes and the freckles that added such a cheeky boyish charm to the mix … He really was attractive. I had witnessed on multiple occasions down at the bar how groups of women were whispering, sticking their heads together and glancing over to him.

Yes, Dean was a good-looking man, and that made it so incomprehensible to me that he would find me attractive in any way. He was Dean Winchester, after all. And I was just, well, me. Nothing but a nerdy English teacher with a weakness for Shakespeare. I didn’t like my jawline and my nose, I wasn’t happy with the way my hair grew and the shape of my eyebrows, and I couldn’t understand, not for the love of God, why on earth someone like Dean Winchester would even look at me.

Though, apparently, he did.

He smiled at me over the breakfast table that morning, and even though there was nothing different, he smiled as he always did, it did convince me, in a way.

This man smiled at me like the sun itself. This man liked me back.

I forced myself to teach a couple of somewhat coherent lessons that day, which sounds easier than it was with the constant thought on my mind that I liked someone and they liked me back.

They liked me back. Absolutely insane.

Insane, and at the same time, scary.

Scary as hell, because something like this had never happened to me. Sure, I had been attracted to people before. I had noticed people before, but it had never been like this. It had never been someone that close to me, someone I spent so much time with. It had never even been someone I interacted with on a regular basis.

I had never had conversations like this with anyone, conversations where I felt so understood. I had never known someone with whom I could sit in silence for hours in a library every afternoon, doing my work and just feeling so good because of their presence.

Liking men had always been a part of me. A part of me that I had learned to accept a while ago, a part of me that I had eventually learned to love. Liking men was something that had always been there, something I was used to.

A man liking me back, though … that was something completely new. It was a first for me, something that I had no clue how to deal with.

And this uncertainty was what scared me to the bones. Because liking men, that was the one thing. That was something I could do in silence, something that could be my little secret that nobody ever had to know about. But a man I liked actually liking me back, that was on a whole other level. That meant it wasn’t just me who wanted those things, who fantasized about a more physical relationship. It wasn’t just me who craved more intimacy, who craved hugs and kisses. It wasn’t just me wanting to touch him. It wasn’t just me dreaming about having him in my bed.

No, that meant he wanted those things as well. We _both_ wanted those things. And if we both wanted them, what was stopping us?

It was the first time the idea of being with another man like that became a real possibility. All my life, thoughts like those had been a distant fantasy. Something that existed solely in my mind, in a safe space that only I knew about.

But making it _real_ , actually _doing_ it with him …

The thought scared me. Well, to be exact, not the thought of doing it, of having this. What scared me was, knowing that, if we really were to do it, we had to be extremely careful. Knowing that there would be consequences if anyone would find out. Knowing that, if anyone, only one single person, found out about that, we would both lose our jobs, our reputation.

Yes, knowing that scared me. And so I did what I had been taught to do when scared. I sought help from God.

After my last lesson that day, I didn’t go to work in the library as I usually would have. Instead, I walked over to the chapel.

It was empty that time of the day, of the week, even. People sometimes came here to pray or maybe only to be able to have a quiet thought in peace, but right now I was all alone in there.

I walked up the aisle and chose a bench far in the front to kneel down and start a silent prayer.

My hands folded and eyes closed, I started formulating all my fears and insecurities into coherent thoughts, hoping that God or just _anyone_ would hear them and just make it a bit easier for me, give me the strength and the courage to overcome them.

It wasn’t a lot that I prayed for, and still I stayed there for over an hour. I kept repeating and reformulating my thoughts, maybe in an attempt to find an answer myself, maybe simply because I didn’t know what to do and just needed to get it out. After a while, my knees started to hurt, but I stayed as I was, I didn’t stop. I kept praying.

Another while later, my knees were now undeniably hurting, I heard the chapel’s door open. Then there were steps, and I heard someone sitting down on a bench maybe one or two rows behind me. I didn’t look up, kept my eyes closed and kept praying.

Several minutes later, I finally stopped. I tried to articulate a clear line about what I asked for, then ended my silent prayer with a just as silent “Amen”.

With a deep breath, I finally opened my eyes and stood up, a sudden pain in my knees. As I stepped out of the bench, I heard the person behind me stand up as well. I turned around –

\- and faced Dean. He had just stepped out of the bench two rows behind me and was now looking at me. For a change, not with a smile but with a rather serious expression instead.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

“Hi,” I answered just as quietly. The surprise must have been visible on my face. Out of all the people at this school that could have come to the chapel that afternoon, Dean was probably the one I had expected the least.

We looked at each other in silence for a moment.

“That was quite a long prayer,” Dean then said.

“It was,” I agreed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He seemed honestly concerned.

“I prayed for some strength, since I desperately need it,” I said quietly, looking into Dean’s eyes.

“What do you need strength for?”

I eyed him for a second. He really seemed concerned, and to be honest, even the simple fact that he was here at the chapel right now proved that he was concerned about me.

“That’s between me and God,” I said.

“Of course,” Dean agreed quietly. He broke the eye contact, looked down for a second.

None of us spoke. We just stood there in the aisle of that little chapel, not even looking at each other.

“I was at the library,” Dean then started quietly, and he looked back up. “And you weren’t there. That seemed weird to me, because you’re there every day. I know you still have work to do until break, so you should have been there. And I thought …” he insecurely looked at me here, “I thought that maybe, you weren’t there because of what I said.”

I silently stared back at him.

“How did you find me here, then?” I asked, ignoring his last sentence.

“I remembered what you said about your uncle,” he explained quietly, “about him giving good advice, and your religious family. Then I thought, if you’re looking for advice, this is probably where you’d go”

“Yeah,” I only breathed. Nothing more.

Another moment of silence and Dean’s eyes seeking mine.

“Is it because of what I said?” he now asked quietly.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t answer, because despite my over an hour long prayer, God apparently hadn’t blessed me with the strength I had asked for yet. Dean waited for an answer for a moment, but nothing came.

“I’m sorry,” he then breathed, still looking into my eyes. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t have-“

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” I interrupted him.

“When?” he asked. “Just now? Or yesterday?”

“Both,” I said quietly. “You didn’t make me uncomfortable just now, neither did you yesterday. That’s not the issue”

“Okay,” Dean breathed. Then, “Did I scare you?”

Again, I didn’t answer, simply because I didn’t know. Yes, I was scared. I was scared to my bones; that had been the whole point of my prayer. But had it been _him_ who had scared me? Had it really been him, or had it rather been my own mind, my own panic?

“Because, you know,” he said as he understood I couldn’t answer, “I know that it can be very scary. The thing with the red and yellow M&Ms. I hate it how people expect you to prefer one, and not only that, they expect you to prefer _the right one_. And I know how scary it can be when you don’t prefer the M&M that society has chosen for you.”

“That’s not what scares me,” I breathed. “I’ve known for quite a while already which one I prefer”

“What is it, then?” Dean asked. “The thing that scares you?”

With a deep sigh, I answered. “I’m scared of the consequences,” I explained quietly, with an honest look into his eyes. “I’m scared of what happens when the wrong person finds out that I like the _wrong_ kind of M&Ms. I’m scared of losing my job just because I like those M&Ms, and not the other ones. Because all my life, it was my secret. Only I knew which ones I preferred, no one else. And now, sharing that secret with someone, that scares me, Dean”

Dean looked at me with a soft expression. “I understand,” he said, “why you’re scared. And if the risk is too big for you, if it scares you too much, I will accept that. I told you yesterday because I had the impression there is something happening between us, and I would like to give it a chance. But if you don’t, if you’re not ready for that, that’s okay, Cas. Even if you’ve just now prayed for the strength to resist, that’s okay. I understand.”

I swallowed hard at his words.

“That’s not what I prayed for,” I breathed.

Now it was him who quietly looked at me.

“I did pray for strength,” I continued, “But not to resist you. I prayed for the strength to overcome my fear.”

Dean stared at me.

“So, you want to …?” he asked quietly.

“Yes,” I breathed. “But I need a bit more time”

He nodded understandingly. It was just a little nod, but very reassuring. 

“Did you notice,” he then said, “that yesterday, I chose a red M&M in the end?”

“Yeah,” I breathed.

“I didn’t do that because I generally prefer the red M&Ms. I told you, like both the red and the yellow ones. I don’t like to choose one in general. But yesterday, I decided that I prefer this one specific red M&M over every other one, no matter if red or yellow.”

I stared at him, not sure if I understood what he was saying.

“I mean,” he said, “Even though I like the red ones and the yellow ones equally in general, right now, there is this one red M&M in particular, that I _really_ like. I like it more than the yellow ones, but also more than the other red ones. And if that one red M&M asks me for a little more time, to overcome its fears, then I’m willing to wait. Because I really like that one red M&M, and I think it’s worth the wait.”

_Oh_ , I thought. _Oh._ It’s me. I’m the red M&M. And he likes me.

Dean Winchester _likes_ me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was chapter 6 already, we're halfway there! (woah, living on a prayer)  
> I hope you're liking it so far :) feedback is, as always welcome, and the next chapter will be up on Tuesday :)


	7. Chapter 7

Dean had said he would give me some more time, and he really did. And not only did he give me time, he also was incredibly sweet about it.

I tried to push all my thoughts about him and what could be back for the following couple of days. I still was a teacher, after all, and I still had some work to do before Christmas break would start. I still had to teach, to prepare lessons, hold the last few exams and start grading them as well. Neutrally speaking, I simply didn’t have time for any kind of relationship changes.

The thing was, I _tried_. I really did try, and to a certain extent, it worked. I was able to ban Dean out of my mind for the duration of a lesson, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t still lying awake every night debating if I should give it a chance. Give him, give _us_ a chance.

I had a hard time making up my mind, and Dean noticed that. After our talk at the Chapel he had told me again that he would give me all the time I needed, that I shouldn’t stress myself out too much over it. He had told me again that it was okay. And no matter what my final answer would be, it would be okay.

And it really was okay.

Later I started thinking that probably Dean’s behaviour during those couple of days after our talk at the chapel was what manifested my decision. Because Dean really proved himself to be a decent man during that short period of time.

He had said he would give me time, and he did. He gave me all the time I needed without pressuring me even once. He was prepared to calmly wait for me to come to a conclusion, no matter how long it took.

He never asked about it. He never brought it up again; he never asked if I had made a decision yet.

The one time he mentioned it was the day after we had talked at the Chapel. We were at the library again; I was working on my final exam for the year while Dean was in his usual spot keeping me company with yet another book in his hands.

As I was working on the last few questions, my mind started drifting away. I looked up and watched Dean for a bit, sitting there concentrated on his book. He really was reading at that moment, I could tell by his eyes slightly moving along with the lines.

I watched him, his calm, neutral expression. His face, that face that had seemed so beautiful to me yet the very first time I had met him. I watched this wonderful man reading his book, and my mind drifted off, started fantasizing about how it could be.

I liked him, and he liked me. For the first time in my life, I actually had the chance to have someone I wanted. Not only stolen looks and secret fantasies, no. I really could _have_ him.

Well, provided that I would overcome my fears. And that was the point, that was the big obstacle I had yet to deal with.

After a while, Dean looked up as well. Probably he had started to feel my gaze on him. He looked up, looked back at me in silence for a moment.

“Are you alright?” he then whispered. My face must have given away that I was in thoughts.

I let out a quiet sigh. “Not sure,” I whispered back, “I’m just thinking”

“What about?”

“You,” was my quiet answer.

Now, Dean sighed quietly as well.

“I can’t help you with that,” he whispered. “I can give you time, but I can’t help you make up your mind. That’s on you”

“Yeah,” I agreed with another sigh. “I’m just … I’m sorry I can’t give you an answer yet. I’m getting there”

His face lightened up and formed a soft smile.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I completely understand. Take all the time you need. And then, when you’ve made your decision, you come and tell me that you’re ready. Or that you won’t ever be ready. Either way, it will be fine. I will accept your answer, no matter what it will be.”

I smiled back at him. “Thank you,” I breathed.

“Nothing to thank me for,” he smiled.

Truth was, there was a lot I wanted to thank him for. Him simply being that wonderful and decent man he was, and he showed me he was. Him being so sweet to me, showing me he cared whenever we saw each other - without ever being too obvious or even harassing about it, just little gestures that made me feel appreciated, wanted.

We didn’t talk much at the breakfast or dinner table to not raise any suspicion among our colleagues, but whenever we sat there together he would give me that charming smile, or that cheeky grin that he always did when stealing food from my plate. Without me even having to ask for it he would pass me things. He just knew, maybe he could tell from my eyes scanning the table or he was familiar with my eating habits, either way he knew when to pass me the salt, and that made me appreciated and understood as never before.

One day in the library, I realized that he had memorized my schedule. He knew which classes I had which day, he knew the order and he even knew when I had exams. He knew what time my last lesson of the day ended and what time I would be at the library after that.

Knowing that he had noticed such little details about me, that he cared enough to remember them; and knowing that he even cared enough to memorize my entire schedule just to be able to meet me at the library at the right time, that made me think. His behaviour after we had had that talk at the chapel, him being willing to give me as much time as I needed, his willingness to wait for me and him never pressuring me, not even once, him being prepared to accept a no from me, that made me think even more.

Dean cared about me, that was obvious. He liked me, and he cared about me. He respected me, didn’t view me as just an object of desire, he genuinely respected me. And he would respect my answer, even if it would be one he didn’t like.

Dean was a good man, that was the conclusion I came to. He had been a good friend so far, he was astonishingly beautiful, he was funny and smart, and I was convinced he would be a good man to me.

A man good enough to be worth the risk.

A man good enough to be definitely worth every risk this cruel world had to offer.

Thus, my decision had been made. The only thing left to do was actually telling him.

*

It was later in December now, the second-to-last day before Christmas break. Dean and I were taking another walk around the snow-covered fields surrounding the school; it had been me who had suggested it.

It hadn’t necessarily been my plan to tell him on that walk. I just liked spending time with him in general, and I really enjoyed having the chance to have more personal conversations with him in the romantic sort of atmosphere that those walks created.

We had chosen a different direction this time. It was cold, of course, it was December, short before Christmas. You could see every breath in the cold winter air as we were walking further and further away from the school building, no other proof of it than the footprints our boots left in the snow.

After walking in silence for a little while, Dean glanced over to me.

“Will you visit someone over Christmas?” he asked. “Your uncle, or anyone?”

“No,” I chuckled. “He’s quite busy over the holidays. This is pretty much the busiest time of the year for him and I really don’t want to bother him when he’s got mass after mass to hold. And there’s not really any other family, so I stay here.”

“Mh,” Dean made, “You’re not celebrating? I thought you would, because of your religious background and all that?”

“Yeah,” I smiled. “Not really. I normally do attend the mass on Christmas Eve down in the village, but nothing more than that. What about you, though? Will you be going back home over the holidays?”

Dean chuckled. A reaction I didn’t really expect.

“Why should I?” he asked. “What for?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “To see your brother, maybe? Some other relatives?”

“No,” Dean said. “Sam is with his girlfriend’s family this year – sure sign they’re going to get married soon, if you ask me – and we don’t have any other close family, so … No point in going back there over the break.”

I smirked at him. “Staying here is better?” I asked. “I mean, there isn’t really anything to do.”

“That’s true,” he replied, “But I got some really nice company here.”

As he said that, he turned to look directly into my eyes for a second. He smiled. I smiled.

“What would you have done if I had told you I’m visiting my uncle?” I then asked.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “I just really hoped you’d stay here.”

Another smile, another exchange of looks, then we continued walking in silence.

None of us said a word for a while, we were just walking, nothing to be heard but the snow crunching under our boots. We got further and further away from the school, were now climbing up a little hill. On top of it, we rested for a moment, enjoying the view we had over the currently snow-covered roofs of the houses down in the village.

Then we continued our walk down the other side of the hill, and we kept walking in complete silence. It wasn’t an awkward kind of silence, though. It was a good one. I felt entirely comfortable with him. I felt good.

It was me who eventually broke the silence. I had been thinking about our conversation about Christmas.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked.

“You just did,” Dean chuckled.

“You’re an idiot,” I laughed.

“You know I am, and you still like me,” Dean grinned. “Of course you can”

“I was just wondering,” I started, “Your brother. You told me that you’re close”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. That seemed to be a reaction he usually had when talking about his brother, and it only convinced me that they did have a good relationship. “What about him?”

I thoughtfully looked at Dean.

“Does he know?” I asked quietly. “About you, I mean. About … the M&Ms.”

Dean let out a quiet sigh before he answered.

“No,” he then said, “He doesn’t.” After a second, he added: “Why did you think he would?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just thought that maybe you told him. Because you’re close, and he’s your brother. Because you trust him, I think.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “I mean, we are close, and I trust him. I trust him a lot, but …” He hesitated. “I guess I just never had a reason to tell him, you know? I’m rather sure that if I told him, it would be alright. He would be okay with it. But as long as there’s no real reason to tell him, keeping it to myself was just the safer option.”

“Mh,” I hummed in agreement. „Yeah, I get that.“ Of course I did, because I felt the exact same way about my uncle. I knew that he would be okay with it. But as long as there was no reason to tell him, having him not know about it was just easier, safer.

“Would you ever tell him, then?” I asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” he said. He stopped now, causing me to stand right next to him. He looked directly into my eyes. “If there’s a reason”

I swallowed as I stood there staring right back into his eyes. His incredible, beautiful green eyes.

The place where Dean had stopped lay at the foot of the hill. We were standing right below an old tree, its empty branches were hanging above our heads, no more leaves on them but still heavy from the load of snow they were carrying.

Tiny snowflakes were falling down on us as we were standing there even though it was not snowing at the moment, they were dropping down from the mass of snow that was collected on the tree.

Dean broke our eye contact for just a second. He glanced over my shoulder, by my head, looked around, looked into the direction the school was lying far behind us. Then, his eyes found mine again.

“Do you think anyone can see us right now?” he asked quietly. “From the school?”

“No,” I breathed without looking around. I could have, just to make sure, but I really didn’t want to look away from Dean’s eyes right now. “We’re right behind the hill. No way anyone could see us right now”

A tiny spark in Dean’s eyes.

“So we’re truly alone, huh?” he said. “Just us”

“Yeah,” I breathed, caught in his eyes at that moment.

There was a silent minute in which we only stood there staring into each other’s eyes. During that minute, I decided to do it. I had made up my mind already before that conversation, I knew that I wanted this. I only had to show him.

Without a word, I pulled my hands out of my pocket. I immediately felt the ice-cold air on my warm skin as I held them out in between us, open, inviting.

He looked down to see this gesture, then looked up into my eyes again. Insecure, surprised. A nod from me, and Dead pulled his hands out of his own pockets.

His hands found mine. He softly put his hands in mine, and the feeling of his warm skin against my palms conjured a soft smile onto my face.

Dean smiled back at me.

There we stood, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling at each other. Holding hands, on a romantic winter day standing under a bare tree, bits of snow falling down on our heads from its branches.

This was the moment. The one perfect moment, and we both knew it. But I knew just as well he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t, because this wasn’t his choice to make. It was on me. If I wanted anything to happen right now, if I wanted anything to happen with him, this was my chance. This was my perfect chance to let him know.

I started to lean in. Slowly, insecurely. I had never done this before.

As I got closer to his face, I closed my eyes.

Then, my lips met his.

It was only a quick brush of skin against skin, of his lips against mine, but it made me feel like I would explode. My heart was suddenly beating faster, it felt like it would jump out of my chest at any moment, and there was that strange feeling sparkling in my stomach that must have been what people mean when they talk about butterflies.

I pulled back after just a second, after just that slight brush of lips. My face still only a few centimeters away from his I opened my eyes again, meeting Dean’s with a nervous, insecure look.

He was smiling at me, and as per usual, his smile automatically caused me to smile back.

“I think I’m ready now,” I whispered.

I watched Dean’s smile getting even brighter in response. This time, it was him who leaned in. His face coming closer, I closed my eyes again. Then his lips were there.

The feeling was just as exciting as it had been the first time, except that it was even more intense. Everything about it was more intense. Dean’s lips were brushing against mine way more confidently than I had done it. He didn’t pull back as fast as I had done it either, no, he even leaned a bit more into me after the first moment, he kept his lips pressed against mine.

And then, he started moving them, started to seek his way around my lips. Softly nibbled on my bottom lip, silently asking for permission to be let inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your nice comments <3 Every single one of them gives me the biggest smile :)  
> The feedback is very appreciated :)  
> Next chapter coming on Friday


	8. Chapter 8

If anyone would have asked me for how long we were standing there, holding hands and kissing, I couldn’t have given an answer. Apart from the fact that if anyone would have asked, that would have been the worst possible thing to happen, because that would have meant someone would have found out about us.

But no, I couldn’t have given an answer, simply because I didn’t know. I had no idea, not the slightest. It could have been minutes or hours that we spent kissing under that tree, I lost all sense of time with Dean’s lips on mine.

All I knew was that it was happening. That I was there, in the incredibly romantic atmosphere that the winter landscape created around us, and that it was _really happening_.

It was overwhelming me, and I kept thinking about it as we were walking back to the school.

It had been Dean who had brought it up.

“We really should get back,” he had said after a while, and no matter how much I wanted more of this, more time alone with him right there under this tree, more kisses from him, I agreed. I knew he was right. We had to get back eventually, even though at that moment, all I wanted was to stay with him like this forever.

So, we had started walking back to the school, the same way we had come. Only one of my hands let go of his, though. We were walking back, very closely together, still holding hands.

And as I was walking through the snow, his hand in mine, I kept thinking.

I really had kissed him. That had happened. It hadn’t been one of my countless fantasies, one of my various daydreams, no. This was reality. I had kissed Dean. He had kissed me back. We had kissed, and he was right there, holding my hand. All that was really happening.

I was thinking back to the very first time I saw Dean, way back in October, the day he had arrived. I remembered how I had been so fascinated by his eyes and his smile, and I imagined a conversation between me and that younger version of myself.

If I could tell that version of myself, Castiel – _Cas_ – You’re going to have your first kiss less than three months from now. You’re going to work up the courage to actually kiss a man. And do you see that one? Your brand-new colleague, the one with the green eyes and the freckles? Yeah, that’s the one. You’re going to be kissing the hell out of a man before the end of this year, and it’s going to be _him_.

If anyone would have told me that back in October, I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. And yet, here I was, holding Dean’s hand while on a romantic walk around the snow-covered fields after kissing him for the very first time.

We didn’t talk much on the walk back to the school. I obviously was in thoughts, still trying to rationalize that this was really happening, and I assumed he was doing the same. So, we walked in silence, holding hands and enjoying each other’s company.

When we got into visual range of the school, we both instinctively let go of each other’s hand and put them into our coat’s pockets instead.

Right before we parted ways in the hallway of our housing building, I quietly said: “We’ll have to talk. To figure things out”

Dean looked at me with a charming smile.

“We’ll have all of Christmas break to figure things out,” he said. Then he disappeared into the staircase leading up to the upper floors.

And he was right; we really did have all of Christmas break to figure things out. We had roughly two weeks to figure out our relationship, to make things work between us. And we did.

*

The next day was the last day before break. We only held lessons up until lunchbreak, and most of the students were getting picked up by their parents later the same day to be home in time for the holidays. The afternoon was occupied a busy mix of teenage boys with suitcases running around, parents trying to make out their sons in the hustle, and teachers and other staff member trying to bring some kind of system into that chaos.

Dean and I were both out in the front yard, where it was the busiest. There were way more cars parking currently than the yard had space for, and a lot more that hadn’t found space to park yet queuing and honking further back. It was pure chaos.

In a quick moment in which I wasn’t telling yet another pair of parents where to best look for their son, I looked up and glanced over the sea of people around me. Dean was doing the same at the exact same moment, and our eyes locked for a second. He smiled at me. I smiled back at him, feeling my cheeks heat up. I was definitely blushing, and it was entirely to blame on the memory of his lips on mine and his tongue doing its thing around my mouth. I quickly looked away and was approached by yet another father, who hopefully didn’t notice the blush on my cheeks as I explained to him the way over to the dorms.

After hours and hours of that sheer chaos, everything was calming down in the late afternoon. Most of the students and their parents were gone now, and some teachers had left already as well. There were only a handful of students left that would take a train from the village the next morning, and, opposing to the previous year, none that would stay at the school over the break.

Dinner that night was served to an accordingly small group, and afterwards I walked back to the apartment building together with Dean. We were walking next to each other, but maintaining a platonic colleague distance between us. It wasn’t very likely for anyone to see us, but just in case. You never knew, and we’d rather not hold hands for a little longer than running into a student while doing it.

I invited him into my apartment – A thing I had never done before, even though we had been friends for several weeks, simply because nobody ever did it. None of the other teachers ever did it, and I thought it would have been somehow suspicious when we had dozens of other places to be together. That night, though, I was sure nobody would know. Both other apartments on my floor were empty, the colleagues living there had driven off to visit their families over the holidays, therefore it seemed rather safe to me to let Dean inside.

After the door had closed behind us, the very first thing I did – before even turning and looking at Dean – was to close all the curtains. I was on ground floor after all, and it being dark outside, it would have been way too easy for someone walking around in the yard to spot the two of us in one of the alit windows.

After closing the last curtain, I turned around to Dean with a smile.

He smiled right back at me as he walked over. Now standing right in front of me, he placed his arms around my hips and pulled me closer, into a soft kiss.

I kissed him back, my hands now lying on his chest, slightly holding onto his shirt.

After pulling out of the kiss, Dean rested his forehead against mine.

“I want to be doing that all the time,” he breathed, barely loud enough to hear it. “Just never stop. No more teaching, nothing. Just kissing you forever”

“Not even food?”

“Okay,” he chuckled. “We’d have to stop for food now and then”

We stood there like that for a little longer, him holding me, our foreheads and noses touching. Then, we sat down on the small couch in the back of the room together.

“What exactly are we now?” I asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Dean replied. “Right now, we’re just two guys, on a couch together. Whatever we will be, that’s on us to decide”

“We’re not just two guys, though,” I whispered. “You’re not just a guy”

“Mh,” Dean made with a smirk, “Am I not?”

“No,” I said. “You’re not just a guy to me. You’re the only person in the world I ever kissed, that’s quite a lot more than just some guy”

His expression towards me became visibly softer.

“The only one?” he asked. “So yesterday, that was your very first kiss?”

I nodded, suddenly weirdly shy. I had pretty much assumed it had been the first for him as well, solely based on my experience. Somehow my brain had made that connection, I like men and I’ve never kissed someone. Dean likes men, therefore he hasn’t either. But the way he was asking me this, it didn’t seem to me like it was the case.

“Oh,” he made softly, “Did you like it?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “It was perfect” And it really had been. The butterflies in my stomach, him, that picturesque winter scenery around us … I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect setting for my first kiss to happen.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed quietly. “Yeah, it really was”

I quietly looked at him for a second.

“It wasn’t your first kiss, though?” I then asked.

“No,” he said with an honest look into my eyes.

I said nothing, only looked back into the beautiful green of his eyes.

I didn’t ask. He answered nevertheless.

“I have done some things,” he said, “With some people. But it doesn’t matter. Right now, to me, the only thing that matters is you”

As he had said it, as he had mentioned that he had done _some things_ , I had wondered for a second. What exactly he meant by that. What he had done; how far _some things_ had gotten. If he’d ever had sex with someone – with a man, specifically.

But then, _the only thing that matters is you_.

He was right. It didn’t matter. Maybe he had kissed others before me. So what? Maybe he had had sex with others before, maybe with women, maybe with men – maybe even with both. So what?

It really didn’t matter. What mattered was, he was there with me. I liked him, and he liked me. He had kissed me, the day before and just right now. Before didn’t matter. Right now was what mattered, and right now, for him, that meant _me_.

I looked into his eyes for another moment.

“Dean,” I then whispered.

“Yeah?” he breathed.

“I really like you. A lot.”

A soft smile on his face.

“I really like you a lot, too,” he said.

We sat together in silence for a moment, only looking at each other.

“When did you know?” I then asked him quietly. “About me, I mean. That I like men.”

“Mh,” Dean made thoughtfully as he leaned back on the couch. “It’s not really one single moment that I suddenly knew. I think I realized, over time. But I mean, you asked me to buy you a drink the very first time we talked. Not exactly subtle.”

I chuckled. “I never meant to say that. It slipped”

“Huh,” Dean smirked, “And here I was thinking you were trying to subtly flirt with me”

“Come on,” I laughed. “You know me. Do you really think I would?”

“Yeah,” Dean chuckled, “That had me confused for a while. Because at first, I really thought that was what you were doing. But then, you never did something like it again. You didn’t even react to my own subtle flirting. I was rather confused about that. At least now I know why”

“Your subtle flirting?” I repeated. “What is that supposed to mean? If you’re referring to calling me _angelic_ , that’s really not subtle at all.”

“That was never intended to be subtle,” Dean said. “You didn’t react to the subtle things, so I decided to give something else a try”

“You were flirting before that?” I asked. Had he? Had he really?

“Yes,” he said. “You’re not seriously telling me now you didn’t even notice?”

“I didn’t,” I chuckled. “You might have been just a tad too subtle”

“Yeah,” he contemplated for a second, “Maybe. But on the other hand, you know … I couldn’t risk anyone else noticing I was trying to flirt. It had to be subtle.”

“So as your final solution you came up with a cryptic message about M&Ms?”

Dean chuckled. “Well, there was an opportunity,” he said. “It was a spontaneous idea, and what can I say? You got the message. It did serve its purpose”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, it did”

We sat in silence for another moment.

“Have you ever danced with somebody?” Dean then asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Not with a man, though”

“Mh,” Dean smiled. “Would you want to? That would be a first for me, too, you know?”

“I’d love to,” I smiled.

Dean stood up and offered me his hand that I gladly took. I turned on the radio on the shelf, and we danced through the room according to Dean’s lead. It was by far not perfect, I stepped on his feet a few times, and one time we even fully bumped into each other because of a miscoordination in which direction to go.

After small interruptions like this, we stopped dancing for a moment, laughing. Especially after bumping into each other we both broke down laughing, and we couldn’t continue the dance for a couple of seconds because of it. Even after he had taken me back in his arms and lead the first step into the dance again, I suddenly started laughing again, and him holding me, my head leaning onto his shoulder, we only stood there, laughing more.

Dean never commented on the music on the radio. He quietly sang along now and then. Not much, I could tell that he only knew a few words from the choruses of popular songs, but I loved it whenever he did it. He was a good singer, as I learned that night.

On one song, he did comment, though. We were caught up in our dance as a new song came on, and Dean rolled his eyes and said, “I don’t like that one”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s that one guy,” Dean said. “He’s _everywhere_ lately. His music isn’t even good. I really don’t get the hype”

I looked at him for a second with an amused smirk.

“You don’t like Elvis?” I then asked.

“Yeah,” Dean shrugged. “What about it?”

“Nothing,” I chuckled. “It’s just, you’ve got to be pretty much the only one”

“Mh,” he made. “So it makes me special”

“Probably,” I chuckled. “We can change the station, if you want to?”

“No,” Dean smiled at me, “It’s alright. I can handle one song”

He did handle the one song, and we kept dancing.

In fact, we kept dancing for another hour. We got closer and closer the later it got, and at some point, we weren’t even dancing anymore. We were only standing there, our bodies pressed against each other, not even space for a hair in-between us, only slightly moving to the music.

Our heads on each other’s shoulders, we were moving with the rhythm. I felt his hand wandering off my waist, slowly down until I could feel it on my ass.

“What are you doing?” I chuckled.

“Sorry,” he immediately apologized. “I didn’t-“

“It’s alright,” I interrupted him. I leaned slightly back to be able to look at him.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I smiled.

“How much is okay?” He then asked with a shy look into my eyes.

“I’m thinking,” I smirked at him, “That maybe, we could check off one more first tonight?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's chapter 8 for you :) (is there sort of a t&s reference in here? probably)  
> thank you all so much for the kudos and your nice comments! I appreciate your feedback lots <3  
> the next will be up on Tuesday, until then, I hope you guys have a great weekend!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> squishing in a quick comment at the beginning this time to put a little smut warning (I guess?) It's not really explicit but if you wanna skip it, go to the * :)

I didn’t even know where all that sudden confidence came from. All I knew was, I had enjoyed every second of being that close to him, I wanted him, and I felt safe with him. I was nervous, of course I was, but I trusted him, and I knew it would be magical, simply because it was with him.

He sought my eyes as I said that, looked for confirmation in them.

“You mean …?” He breathed.

“Yes,” I said.

Another moment in which he looked into my eyes, seemingly still searching for confirmation that I really was sure about this, that I really wanted this.

“Okay,” he then breathed, and before I got the chance to say anything else, he had closed my mouth with a kiss already.

This first kiss was slow and soft, almost shy, just like the first innocent ones on our walk the day before. It soon turned a lot less innocent, though, as he got way more passionate with his hands all over my body and his tongue shamelessly begging for entrance.

He was kissing and kissing me, more and more passionate with every time he came back onto my mouth after taking a breath. I was rather shy about it at first, of course I had never done anything like this before and wasn’t quite sure about what to do, how to do it. I let him guide me, let him make the bigger steps and just imitated what he was doing, and judging by the little sounds he let slip into my mouth, I probably didn’t do too bad.

Soon his kisses started to become even more demanding, his breath got audibly faster and his hands greedier on my body, and my reaction to what we were doing wasn’t much different. I could feel him against my thigh, his growing bulge pressing against me, and I thought with satisfaction: This is all me. I’m the one doing this to him. I’m making him aroused. I’m getting him hard.

Not that he wouldn’t have done the exact same thing to me. God no, he absolutely did. Though, as excited as I was about everything that was happening, I was strangely focused on him. I was about to have sex for the very first time, and both my mind and body were equally excited about that, but at the same time, there was _Dean Winchester_ right there with me, currently visibly aroused at _me_ , and that reality right in front of me really outdid everything else.

Dean soon started rubbing his crotch against me. My hands instinctively grabbed his waist, going with his movements, slightly guiding him as he was moving against my thigh.

“Oh God,” I couldn’t hold back.

“Do you like that?” Dean breathed without stopping.

“I love it”

“Yeah?” Dean’s voice was faintly more than a hot breath right at my ear that gave me goosebumps.

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Do you want more of it?” Dean breathed hot into my ear. “Do you want it more intensely?”

“Oh God yes,” I sighed, “please”

Dean pulled slightly back. He brought his face back to mine for just long enough for me to see his grin. Then he pressed another hot kiss on my lips and was right back at my ear to whisper just one word into it.

“Bed,” he commanded with hot breath.

I obeyed with an eager nod. Dean’s waist still closely attached to mine, I somehow led us into my bedroom. On the way we bumped into the wall, the door, and each other; and it would have undoubtedly been easier to just let go of him for a second, but I simply didn’t want to. I wanted him close to me, I wanted to touch him, I wanted _all_ of him.

When we finally arrived at our destination, Dean pulled me close into a new hot kiss already. He pushed me backwards without breaking it, pushed and pushed without ever letting go, until I felt the bed frame in the back of my knees. 

Only now he let go of the kiss, pulled back, and grinned at me as he pushed me down onto the mattress. I let him, looking up at him with a grin on my own as he pushed me down onto my bed, climbing on top of me in the same movement.

He was right back at kissing me. It was a hot, sloppy kind of kissing, with his tongue in my mouth and his teeth on my lips. I loved every second of it. Just as much as I loved his crotch rubbing against my thigh again, even more passionately now, more rhythmic now that he was on top of me. Eventually, I started pushing up against him, my hips automatically moving, moving my own crotch against his thigh, almost instantly adopting the rhythm that he was using on me.

“Dean,” I panted after a while of that.

“Yeah?” came his panted answer.

“I can’t … God,” I interrupted myself at a very pleasurable push from Dean, “If you keep doing that, this won’t last very long”

“So?” he grinned at me. “There’s nothing wrong with making it quick”

“Do you want it quick?” I asked. Somehow we both stopped moving as I asked that. Dean looked down into my eyes for a second before he answered.

“To be honest with you, Cas,” he then said, “You’re driving me insane right now, and I don’t know if I can hold back long enough to extend this to a satisfying length”

“Yeah,” I chuckled, “Me neither. And I’m fine with that for tonight, but I’d at least like to number down the layer of clothes”

Dean’s answer to that was another grin.

“We can do that,” he grinned as he started to unbutton my shirt. After a moment that I took to adjust to that, I brought my hands up to his collar and started doing the same to him. He came to assist me, and only a second later both our shirts landed on the ground right beside the bed.

Fascinated by his now naked chest in front of me, I took a moment to run my hands over his body and admire it. It was even better than I had imagined it to be. Dean was looking so incredibly good below his layers of clothing; I hadn’t even dared to imagine something like this in my wildest fantasies.

He watched me stroking his chest for a bit, a smile on his face. Then, he leaned further down, his hands on my hips now as he started nibbling on my neck and then slowly tracing his mouth down my chest. As he arrived at my right nipple and let his tongue circle around it, my hand buried itself in his hair, keeping him right there as an uncontrolled sigh escaped my lips.

My hips pushed up against him again, and without taking his mouth off my body, he moved back at me, causing me to let out a quiet moan.

He glanced up to me with a grin, then wordlessly moved further down and without a warning buried his face in my still fully clothed crotch.

Even though I was still fully dressed from the waist down, the feeling of his mouth on me was incredible. I could feel his hot breath on me through the fabric, and it made my hard penis twitch up against my pants.

“Jesus,” I panted, “Dean, please”

Dean didn’t answer. Instead, he pushed his face even deeper into my crotch.

“Ah,” I groaned. “Dean. Remember what I said about this not lasting long? If the pants don’t even come off before this ends, I’m going to be pissed”

Now, Dean pulled back slightly. He looked up to meet my eyes, a grin on his face.

“Then I suggest we better take the pants off,” he said.

“Yeah,” I smirked.

And Dean didn’t waste any time. His hands were right down on my fly, and before I even fully realised what he was doing, he had pulled down my pants and underwear already. My erection sprung free, and I gasped at that sudden feeling of cold air and freedom. I watched with a content smirk on my face as Dean stood right before the bed and freed himself from his own pants and underwear.

Now both of us fully naked, he came down on me again. He’s right there on top of me, I thought. Dean Winchester, naked, in bed with me. Never, not in my wildest fantasies, had I ever imagined it to be like that. _Him_ to be like that. To be so amazing.

He found his spot on top of me again, and the sudden feeling of nothing but his bare hot skin on mine almost pushed me over the edge untouched. He was right there. His erection was right there above my body, only millimeters away from my own, coming even closer as he leaned in to kiss me again.

A second into that kiss, he started moving against me again. And as much as I had loved it before, this time he drove me _insane_. This time there was no fabric between us, there was nothing between us at all. It was nothing but bare skin, it was his erection, hard and leaking, that he was rubbing against mine.

It took only seconds of this before I started moaning, before I clenched the fingernails of both my hands into his bare back. A couple more seconds, and he pulled out of the kiss, letting out a moan as well before he moved over to kiss down my neck as he kept moving, as he kept moving against me with his perfect rhythm.

It didn’t take long. It didn’t take me long at all, and even though I had known it would end way too fast, I was surprised by how fast my orgasm actually came. Dean was moving us on the bed, and there I was below him, moaning and clinging onto him, my nails leaving red stripes on his back.

I moaned his name as I came, in-between my other fast, overwhelmed moans I panted a sudden “Dean” followed by another one right away.

“Cas,” Dean moaned, and that was the final straw that pushed me over the edge. I buried my nails in his back even harder, keeping him as close as somehow possible as I came.

He was still moving against me as I was releasing in-between our bodies, but the rhythm was getting faster, Dean was getting more and more off pace, and only seconds after I had and loosened my grip on him, he came too.

He immediately broke down on me afterwards, trying to catch his breath back with his forehead resting against mine, both of us covered in sweat, a total mess made on my stomach. We stayed like this for what felt like an eternity, simply holding each other, breathing.

*

That was my first time with Dean; and despite it being rushed and of very short duration, it was wonderful. The second time was just as wonderful. The third time was incredible, and the fourth one even better.

We did it many times that Christmas break; so much that I lost count after only a few days. There wasn’t much else to do for us anyways, so we made good use of the time. It was nights just as well as mornings, afternoons, and random times during the day. I didn’t knew how often we had done it by the time the break ended, but what I knew was that it had been wonderful every single time, and that it had become better and better with every single touch, every kiss from Dean.

Having sex of course wasn’t the _only_ thing we did over Christmas break – even though it undoubtedly was the thing we did the most. We also went on many walks around the fields that were getting covered in more and more snow, and we were way braver about holding hands on those walks now that the risk of being seen was way smaller.

At one of those walks Dean, without a warning, threw a snowball at me. That quickly escalated into a snowball fight with no sign of mercy and ended with him tackling me down into the snow. Having me pinned to the ground like that, he kissed me tenderly before dropping another handful of snow right into my face – to which I responded with a nice load of snow in his coat’s collar. 

On Christmas Eve, Dean agreed to join me to the mass down at the village, and I didn’t even have to ask twice. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about it, I could see that, but he didn’t complain either. We saw a couple of familiar faces there, including some of our colleagues that lived down in the village and of course visited the mass for Christmas with their families. Even our principal, Mr. Price, was there with his wife.

I had desperately hoped he wouldn’t do it, but as we were leaving the church after mass, he approached us. It only was small talk, sure, but it was _exhausting_ small talk.

I hoped that our chat would be over after a quick greeting and introduction to his wife, but apparently the Price family was in no hurry to get back home.

First, he asked about how our break was so far, and if we celebrated Christmas. We only gave short answers (not necessarily to be rude, but really, what even was there to say?), and he soon went over to telling us about how his family was spending the holidays.

“That sounds great,” I said with a smile after he finished talking about their grand-son, who was, as Mrs. Price explained, back at home, sleeping. “You seem to be having a really nice Christmas”

“Oh, we do!” he agreed. “The house is always busy over the holidays. What about you, though? I can imagine it gets rather boring, all alone at the empty school?”

Hearing that, I glanced over to Dean with a little smile.

“It’s alright so far,” I then answered.

“Yes,” Dean agreed with me, “It could be, probably, but so far we’re rather good at finding ways to entertain ourselves”

Of course we found ways. But telling our boss in right front of the Church on Christmas Eve that we were not bored at all because we had been at it like rabbits ever since the break had started probably wouldn’t have been the best decision.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Mr. Price said with a smile. “You do have each other, at least. With some nice company, it rarely ever gets boring”

He was absolutely right, it never got boring.

And oh yes, the company was nice. It was _extremely_ nice; Mr. Price didn’t have the slightest idea about how nice the company actually was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to let y'all know that I had a very different plan for this chapter originally, but then Cas and Dean did that thing where they break free from the narrative ... They decided to do that, and who am I to stop them. Also, I very rarely write sex scenes, and I've never done one with a 1st person narrator before, so excuse this being awkward :/  
> Anyway, they finally did it, they're head over heels in love, and it looks like we're heading for a fluffy happy end - or are we...?


	10. Chapter 10

Christmas break was wonderful. I enjoyed every single second I got to spend with Dean. I tried to memorize every single one of the sweet sweet words he whispered into my ear; I tried to imprint his touch on my skin. I was absorbing his unique scent every second I was close to him, and I enjoyed everything about him every night when I was there sleeping in his arms.

We tried to make the best out of the time we had, because we both knew that after the break, when everyone else would return to the school and the usual everyday business would start again, we couldn’t have those nights. Not like this, at least.

Yes, Christmas break was wonderful, and it ended way too soon.

Two weeks went by like seconds, and before we even realized it, the break was over. Our colleagues and students started arriving at the school again, all the floors were suddenly filled with lots of teenagers again, and the peaceful calm that the break had laid over the building was suddenly gone.

The last day of break, Dean was with me again. We were both somewhat unhappy. Of course, this honeymoon-like period was coming to an end and we were heading for weeks of forced distance between us, weeks of pretending and acting like we weren’t what we were, like we had never done what we did. It would be exhausting, and it would be difficult, we both knew that.

Dean was sprawling on my couch that night, playing around with a pillow while he watched me preparing my bag for the lessons of the following day. It still was sitting there in the back of the room from the last day of school before break, I only had taken out some folders and books in order to do some work – work that I hadn’t done over break, by the way. I had planned to do it, yes, but then Dean had happened. And given the choice between working through a bunch of essays that my students had half-heartedly finished right before break or having mind-blowing sex with Dean, I would have always chosen the latter.

So, I packed up the things I needed for the next day’s lesson, and when I was almost finished, I noticed something.

My notebook.

My notebook was missing. It wasn’t inside the bag, and I couldn’t find it on the table or the bookshelf either.

“What’s wrong?” Dean asked from the couch.

“I can’t find my notebook,” I explained as I was looking through the top row of books on the shelf.

“What does it look like?”

“You know the one,” I said. “Blue cover, I always have it out on the table in the library. Have you seen it anywhere?”

“I don’t think so,” Dean replied. “Did you have it over break? Maybe you left it in the library or something?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. There was nothing on the shelf, and I now turned around to Dean with a sigh. “It could be, maybe I forgot to pack it the last time I was in the library”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “You should just have a look tomorrow. I mean, it’s not that important. You don’t necessarily need your notebook to teach”

“No,” I agreed thoughtfully, “No, you’re right”

And he indeed was right, it wasn’t that important. It was just a notebook, not exactly relevant for teaching. It had notes in it about work I still had to do, what topics to prepare for which dates, outlines for lessons. I probably even could have handled it if I had lost it completely, and even though I would have been slightly mad about that happening, losing my notes wasn’t what I was worried about.

Sure, there were all my work notes in it. But what was even more important: There was that one page in the back of it where I had written about Dean.

This notebook contained thoughts about Dean, words associated with him and his beauty, my feelings for him.

This notebook contained the poem I had written about him.

So, no. I wasn’t worried about losing the notes on my work. I could do without those. What I was seriously concerned about was somebody finding the notebook, and in an attempt to make out the owner, flipping through it.

Flipping through it and in an event of the worst luck a person could have, landing on that one page.

Dean must have noticed I was in thoughts. He eyed me for a moment as I was standing there, silently thinking.

“What is it?” He then asked. “Is there something important in it?”

“No,” I lied. “It’s just some notes that I would like back. It would be tiring to try and write it all down again from memory. That’s all”

“Mh,” Dean hummed a sound of understanding. “I’m sure it will be alright. It’s probably waiting for you right there at the library”

Yes, probably, I thought. I shouldn’t worry so much. Nobody had been here over break, so if I had left my notebook at the library, it most likely was still lying exactly where I had left it. Not many people would come to the library before I could be there the next day, and nobody would pick it up anyways.

And even if anyone did and opened it, they would have a look at the first few pages. Nobody would flip through that many empty pages to even realize there was one single page with writing on it further in the back.

It’s all fine, I calmed myself down. Nobody has seen it. Nobody _will_ see it. Nobody knows. It’s all fine.

*

Dean couldn’t stay that night.

Well, he technically could have stayed with me, sure. But we both agreed that the risk of somebody seeing him come out of my apartment the next morning was way too big. If one of our colleagues had seen him coming out my door in the afternoon or late evening we could have explained it. It could have just been two good friends hanging out at one’s place together. But leaving my place early in the morning in his clothes from the day before, when his own apartment was only a flight of stairs away … that would have been a lot harder to explain away.

He couldn’t stay, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t have him in my bed before he left for the night. That night was amazing with him, as it always was, but it was different as well.

Afraid of potentially being heard in the neighbouring rooms, we tried to be as silent as somehow possible. This quest proved itself to become gradually more difficult with an orgasm coming into reach, but with a lot of self-control and Dean’s hand over my mouth, we really managed to finish without even one suspicious sound leaving my bedroom.

“I like it better when I can hear you,” Dean whispered into my ear as he was holding me afterwards, both of us enjoying the afterglow before having to let go.

“Me too,” I sighed. “But that would be too much of a risk”

“I know,” Dean sighed. “I know”

He eventually had to leave, and lying in bed alone like that, suddenly feeling so horribly cold and empty, I realized that I just slept so much better with Dean next to me.

School started again the next day, and many lonely nights like that one followed.

We went back to our old routine. Every afternoon after our lessons, we met at the library. I did my work with Dean watching me, or reading a book, or secretly watching me while pretending to read a book. We barely ever talked, given the fact that it was a library, and mostly communicated via looks and smiles.

Now and then we took a walk together, wandering around the fields surrounding the school that were still covered in snow, holding hands when in a safe enough distance from every building.

We even returned to our tradition of Dean buying me a drink at the bar in the village on Saturdays, and so it happened that the first Saturday night after Christmas break, we were once again sitting in the bar together, trying to somehow communicate over the noise around us.

“You know,” I said, “You really don’t have to pay for my drinks every time we come here. I could pay too, once or twice”

Dean smiled at me.

“I like it, though,” he said. “And by now, it’s almost a habit”

“Spending money should not be a habit,” I chuckled. “Some could say you’re wasting it”

Dean smirked. “On you?” he said. “Never. You’re worth every penny”

“Mh, am I?”

“Yeah,” he smirked. “Also, I like to think of this as dates. I’m a gentleman; I won’t have my date pay for their own drinks”

“Oh, so you’re implying that I am not a gentleman?”

“Oh no, you definitely are,” he chuckled. “Though, you’re the one who asked me to buy you a drink, remember? I’m only keeping my promise”

“Yeah,” I smirked. “It’s crazy how much has changed since I asked you that”

Dean looked directly into my eyes now, smiling.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “crazy”

I returned his gaze, and we spend a while only looking into each other’s eyes, smiling. At some point, Dean glanced away, down to the table, and cleared his throat.

Right, I reminded myself. We were in public. We were just two colleagues going for a drink together. And colleagues didn’t stare at each other like that.

“Another round?” he asked.

“Please,” I smiled.

So, Dean got us another round, and another one after that. Then, despite having to show up for mass early the next day, we decided to do another one afterwards. And maybe, that was a mistake.

As we left the bar an hour or two later, we both were tipsy. Not exactly drunk, just tipsy enough to take a couple of things easier than we would have being sober.

One of those things was, keeping our relationship secret at all costs and never, not under any circumstances, doing anything suspicious in public.

We were walking through the nightly village on our way back to the school, and only after a few steps outside the bar, Dean linked arms with me. We usually never did anything like that, even though it could have still been platonic. Even right now, it could have been just two platonic friends supporting each other after having maybe a bit too many drinks at the bar together. But we usually never did, just to be safe.

That night, though, we did. We both wanted it, we were desperate for some physical contact, and at the moment, we didn’t exactly care. I wanted him near me, and I thought, calm down. It’s going to be fine.

And maybe it would have been fine, if it only would have stayed with that.

A bit later, Dean leaned in closer and pressed a kiss on my neck as we were walking. I could have told him to not do that, I could have pushed him back to an appropriate distance, but again, I wanted him close, and so I didn’t.

It’s dark, my alcoholised mind calmed my emerging worries. It’s dark, there’s nobody out here. It’s fine.

So, I didn’t push him away. Instead, I chuckled and even leaned into him a bit further. Taking the hint, Dean continued. He freed the grip he had on my arm and put his arm around my waist instead, pulling me even closer. For a few steps, we walked like that. Then, his hand wandered down my back, down to my ass.

Again, I let him do it. I turned my face over to him and smirked at him for a moment, obviously signalling him that I liked it. Dean looked right back at me, a grin on his face.

There was a spark in his eyes that seemed familiar to me, though I had never seen it anywhere but the bedroom. And speaking from a sober perspective, I should have never seen it anywhere near public, and definitely not out on the street.

He looked at me with that spark for a moment, before I suddenly found myself pushed up against the wall of a random house we had just been walking by, Dean’s hand on my hips and his lips on mine.

I knew we shouldn’t be doing that. I knew, even my alcoholised brain still knew it. But I _wanted_ it, I wanted him, and the idea of being kissing crazy by him out on the street late on a Saturday night was so incredibly exciting …

A few kisses, and I suddenly felt Dean’s knee in-between my legs, softly trying to spread them.

“Dean,” I breathed.

He pulled his face back far enough to look at me, waiting for what I had to say.

“Not here,” I convinced myself to say. I wanted this, and I really didn’t want to lose the pressure of his body against mine, but the part of me that was still thinking straight was screaming and rioting about how risky and stupid this was.

“Right,” Dean breathed, and he made a step back. I had no time to grieve the sudden loss of his body’s warmth, because Dean didn’t waste any time to grab my hand and pull me around the next corner into an alley that was way darker than the main street.

I found myself pushed up against yet another wall, and Dean was right back to where he had started. He was passionately kissing me; his knee was pushing my legs apart just wide enough for him to fit his own leg in-between, leaning into me even closer than before. His hands were first on my hips, then suddenly all over my body. My own hands were gripping hardly into his back, holding him as close as he was, never wanting to let him go as he was moving his body against mine.

His lips and tongue now traced their way away from my mouth. Dean was kissing along my jawline, then nibbled on my ear lobe for a second, making me sigh, before he traced the kisses further down to my neck where he finally stayed, first kissing, then sucking on my skin.

Despite knowing that this would result in dark marks on me that I would be struggling to hide, I let him. I grabbed harder into his back, holding him tight. As he was working his magic on my neck, I rested my chin on his shoulder.

My eyes were closed as I was enjoying the pleasurable feeling he gave to me with quiet sighs. When Dean slightly shifted his position, I moved with him. As I did, my eyes flickered open for just a second.

And I froze.

I saw somebody standing there on the main street, only a couple of steps away from us. The person – it was a man, I was rather sure of that – was wearing a dark coat and a hat, their face hidden in the shadow of the street lamp, though obviously watching us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh ... O.O
> 
> Next chapter coming on Tuesday (there's only 2 left! crazy how fast the time went by)  
> thank you all so much for your feedback! your nice comments are always motivating me lots :)


	11. Chapter 11

I immediately grabbed Dean’s shoulders and pushed him away, forced him off of me. He stood there, visibly irritated as I pushed him aside and ran out of the alley, onto the main street – that was now empty.

I looked around, turned in every direction, but it was just me standing lonely on the empty street. The person was gone.

“Cas,” I heard Dean calling my name.

I didn’t answer. I only stood there on the lonely street, staring into the night.

“Cas,” Dean said again. He had now walked out of the alley as well, arrived next to me. “Cas, what’s wrong?”

I finally turned to him, still in shock.

“I saw someone,” I explained quietly, looking into his eyes. “There was somebody watching us”

Dean’s face went pale. “What?” he breathed.

“It was a man,” I stuttered, “He wore a dark coat and a hat, I … I couldn’t see his face, but he was standing right here, and he was watching us, Dean, he … He was looking directly at us. He _saw_ us, Dean!”

For a moment, none of us said a word. We were just standing there on the cold, empty street, staring at each other. Dean’s face was still pale in shock, and I probably didn’t look any different.

“Cas …” he finally spoke, but nothing more than that one word came over his lips.

“What if he knows us?” I breathed. “So many people in the village know who we are. What if _he_ knows who we are?”

Now that the shock was slowly sinking in, panic started rising. I had been aware of the risk, of course I had. I had been thinking about it, Dean had waited for me to make up my mind about it because I had been so scared about exactly this happening.

But I had thought we would be better at hiding it. I had been prepared for something like this to happen eventually, at some point. But not now, not yet. We had had only roughly three weeks together so far, this was way too early.

“I’m so sorry,” Dean whispered. “I didn’t … I shouldn’t have started this. I didn’t think. God Cas, I am so sorry …”

“Dean,” I said his name in a calm voice, as calm as possible given my rising panic. “Don’t apologize for it. It’s not just your fault. I should have stopped you, but I didn’t. It’s just as much my fault.”

Dean acknowledged what I had said with a barely noticeable nod before we fell into a worried silence again.

“We should go home,” he whispered after a while.

“Yeah,” I agreed quietly.

So, we continued our way back to the school, and while walking next to him in glum silence, I glanced at the houses we were walking by.

The man must have gone somewhere, I was thinking. How had he been able to disappear so fast? What if it had been someone living in the surrounding houses, and that was why I hadn’t been able to see him, because he had disappeared into the private safety of his home?

One name-tag on a house rather close to the ally caught my eye. _Price_ , it read.

Price. A thought crossed my mind as I read that, a truly horrible thought.

I glanced over to Dean who was sadly looking down on the ground, and I decided to not tell him. He blamed himself for it all already; there was no need to worry him even more.

And it probably was just a coincidence, I thought. There were many people living on this street. Nothing but a coincidence that our boss happened to be one of them. And yet, that horrible thought stayed on my mind, accompanied by the just as horrible question, _what if?_

Dean made no move to come into my apartment that night, and I had no desire at all to ask him to. We both still were way too shocked and worried to risk anything else that night.

We didn’t even kiss as we quickly said goodnight in the hallway. “I’m sorry,” was the last thing Dean whispered before he disappeared into the darkness that was surrounding the stairwell.

I struggled to get any sleep that night. Lying awake for hours, I kept worrying, I kept asking myself, _what if_? What if it really had been Mr. Price standing there, who had caught us making out against the wall in a dark alley? And what if it hadn’t been him, but one of his neighbours instead? And what if this neighbour knew who we were, knew we were teachers at this school, and what if this neighbour told Mr. Price about it?

*

I got the answer to my questions sooner than I wished for. As I was standing in front of the Chapel next to Dean the following Sunday morning, exhausted after a sleepless night full of worries and mass in a cold chapel with dean next to me, both obviously not listening to a word that was said but hanging in our own thoughts, our countless worries instead, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.

I instantly turned around to see who was approaching me from behind. And as I saw who it was, my heart dropped into my guts. My eyes met Mr. Price’s for just a brief second, but that quick second was telling me everything I needed to know.

“I want to see you in my office. 20 minutes,” was all he said before he turned and disappeared into the crowd of students flocking out of the chapel.

I looked after him for a moment, stared into the crowd even after his head had disappeared entirely, then I turned back to Dean. Our eyes locked, both equally shocked.

“Do you think …” Dean started.

“Yes,” I replied before he had even finished his question.

*

My thoughts were racing as I walked through the empty corridors on the way to Mr. Price’s office. I was sure he knew about me and Dean. He had to know. It had to have been him who saw us the night before. Why else would he call me into his office on a Sunday morning, right after mass? What other reason could he even have for this?

In front of his door, I hesitated a second before knocking. My hand froze, my heart heavy at the thought.

This is it, I thought. He knows. You’re screwed. You’re absolutely screwed.

Then, I knocked.

*

He was sitting at his desk as I entered the room.

"Castiel," he said as he looked up at me. "Thank you for coming"

I didn't answer, acknowledged it with only a hint of a nod.

"Please, sit down," he said and pointed at one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk. I walked the few steps over and sat down on the first one, never looking at him, only as I sat I nervously looked up to meet his eyes.

For a moment, none of us said a word. We were just sitting there in silence, him eyeing me with an expression I couldn't define, me looking at him as nervous as I had never been before, certain of losing my job in the course of this conversation.

"I think you might want this back," he finally spoke and pushed something towards me over the desk.

It was a notebook. My notebook. There it lay before me, its blue cover bright in front of my eyes.

With another insecure look at him, I hesitantly grabbed it and put it down on my lap.

"Thank you," I said quietly.

"Nothing to thank me for," he said. "I found it in the library. It was just sitting there on the table, open for anyone who might want to have a peek inside. Even if you're neglecting your possessions, maybe you should be more careful about your secrets."

Scared as I was, I couldn't speak an answer. All I did was form another shy nod.

"I never meant to intrude your privacy, you know?" he continued calmly. "I just flicked it open to see who it belonged to. And it was quite obviously yours, that much the first page told me. But there was another page further back that was standing out, it was rather prominent as if it gets opened a lot more than the others ... but who am I telling this. You for sure know about the frequency of this page being opened"

With another shy, scared look at him, I nodded once more.

"At first, I didn't really think about it," he continued. "What I saw was a nice poem, but well, you are an English teacher, after all. And maybe it is a rather romantic poem, but I thought, he's young, and whatever he does with some green-eyed girl is none of my business. It didn't click right away. I read _forbidden_ being circled, and it still didn't click. You know when it finally did?"

I wasn't able to answer, only kept staring at him.

"It was the day before break," he answered despite my missing reaction. "During breakfast. I meant to give the notebook back to you that day, actually. I looked over, and I saw you two talking. I looked at him and I started realizing, and then I glanced over to you, I saw the way you were looking at him. Smiling at him. That was when it finally clicked."

He was looking at me again, and I finally managed to speak.

"Why didn't you say something back then?" I asked quietly.

"Well," he said, "The main reason was, I wasn't sure. I mean, I indeed was quite sure about your poem being about him, though I didn't know what it was that was going on with you. I didn't know if there was anything going on at all. I didn't want to make a fuss about some unrequited desires. So I decided to just observe for a while"

"How, though?" I breathed. "You weren't here over Christmas break"

"No," he said calmly. "No, and I didn't need to be. I spend some time wondering, of course. Thinking. Then, seeing you together at mass on Christmas Eve told me a lot. It was just in the way you interacted. Mostly those little smiles, you know? But I still wasn't sure enough to talk to you about it. I kept observing when school started again, and you still seemed just a bit too close, too familiar with each other, but that still wasn't enough evidence. I still wasn't entirely sure. Until last night."

"That was you," I said quietly. It wasn't even a question, rather a statement. I had suspected it.

"Yes," he said. "I saw you by chance. I was looking out the window right when you were walking by on the street. And even though what I saw through the window could have been evidence enough already, I decided to go outside and make sure. Now, there's no doubt left. Which is why you're here right now."

"Why only me?" I asked. "What about him?"

"Well," he said, "You've got the benefit of the longer employment. He's just a substitute."

Again, I only nodded. Of course. I was the problem he had to deal with. Dean was nothing but a substitute anyway, that problem would solve itself.

"Castiel," he now said. "I understand that you're young, and in your youth there surely are desires that demand to be fulfilled. But boy ... I am convinced that especially for a man as faithful as you, falling for sins like that cannot possibly be the way"

"Are you calling me a sinner?" I asked quietly, looking directly at him.

"I am," he said, "Isn't that what you are?"

"Am I really?" I replied. "Am I sinning if I'm just being the person God made me, with all the mistakes and desires he intended? Does it make me any more of a sinner than any other man, having the same desires for his wife?"

"It is not your wife, though," he argued. He was still calm, didn't say it in a derogatory way. "It isn't even a woman"

"No," I agreed, "No, it's not. But that's nothing I could ever change. It's just who I am. So if that makes me a sinner in your eyes, if that makes me unsuitable for the position I am currently in ..." I swallowed, "Then maybe it'd be best if you'd just tell me right now"

He looked at me for a moment. Then, for the first time in this conversation, he slightly switched away from his calm voice. He sighed.

"I won’t fire you," he then said.

Now that truly surprised me, had I been absolutely certain of that being the final result.

"You won't?"

"No, Castiel. I won't. You're good at what you do, your classes always do well and I have experienced you as a responsible and trustworthy teacher so far. You are a win for this school."

"Am I?" I asked, "Even though I’m a sinner?"

"Well," he said, "let's say, I know that there are certain things happening between you and another man. But in favour of you being good at what you do and preventing unwanted rumours, I choose to ignore them. And if you can ensure me that from now on those things will happen strictly only behind locked doors and closed curtains, I will choose to continue to ignore them."

I stared at him.

"You're just going to ignore it?" I asked. I couldn't believe it. "You'll just ... let us continue?"

"Yes," he said. "My conditions are simple. You keep it locked up. What happens in your bedroom is nobody's business, but you don't bring any of it outside. I won't ignore something like last night for a second time. You're careful and don't let anyone else know. And you promise me, Castiel, that you won't ever cause me a problem like this again. I ignore it once, that doesn't give you a free pass forever"

"What do you mean," I asked, "again?"

"I mean, after he's gone," he explained. "This one time. I won't tolerate you flinging yourself onto yet another man next fall"

"After ..." I started to repeat, then stopped. After Dean was gone.

Of course. Jesus, of course. He was just a substitute. He was only here until summer. He wasn't even a teacher. How had that thought never crossed my mind before?

"Yes," he said, eyeing me. "After he's gone. You knew that, right? I mean, he's only substituting."

After he's gone, my mind repeated. Dean would be gone in a few months. I had fallen in love with someone who would be gone in a few months.

I was still only staring at him. The sudden realisation must have been obvious on my face, since his expression suddenly got softer.

"You knew that, Castiel," he said quietly. "From the very beginning. It was clear ever since that he'll have to go"

"Yeah," I finally breathed. "I know that, but I still don't want to let him go"

“Oh,” he made softly, “So it’s like _that_ ”

And yes, he was right. It was like that. I loved Dean, even if I had only known him for a couple of months, even though we had only had our first kiss a few weeks ago. The feeling had been there before, for sure, but it had never been as prominently on my mind as at right that moment with the sudden realization that I would have to let him go.

It was right there, suddenly so clear in front of me. I loved him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter 11 :) I hope y'all are doing well and aren't too hungover from the Destiel wedding on Sunday ;)  
> Thank y'all so much for reading and commenting! <3  
> There's a lot happening in this one as we're getting closer and closer to the end ... only one chapter left now, that will be up on Friday :)


	12. Chapter 12

After my talk with Mr. Price I wandered through the hallways on my way back to Dean. I couldn’t wait to tell him about whatever it was that had just happened, about how incredibly lucky we were and that it would all be fine.

I couldn’t believe it. All my fears, my worries and the sheer panic I had been in the entire night, all those hours of making up horrible scenarios and my hopeless plans for what to do if I’d lose my job over this … It didn’t matter now. It really was all fine.

I looked for Dean all around the school. The first place I went to was the library, but he wasn’t there. Nothing but his empty chair was sitting there in between the bookshelves. I walked around the classrooms, the community spaces, even the dining hall, but Dean was nowhere to be seen.

Just when I had decided to knock at his apartment door to see if he maybe was there, unusual for him but maybe behaviour caused by his panic, I saw him. Outside the school, I saw a familiar figure standing in the snow, looking down onto the village.

I walked up to him. It took me longer than expected as he was standing quite a distance away from the school, presumably in an attempt to be all alone and at peace with his thoughts.

As I finally arrived, I came to stop right next to him. None of us said a word, we just stood there next to each other in silence.

I waited for him to acknowledge my presence in any way, but he didn’t show any sign of doing so.

“Hey,” I finally said. Quietly, calmly, really fitting the mood of the surroundings.

Dean sighed deeply before he finally turned to me.

“I’m so sorry, Cas,” he said.

“I already told you,” I replied quietly, “That it’s not your fault. We both-“

“No,” he interrupted me determinedly. “It is. It’s all my fault. Because I am the damn idiot who couldn’t keep his hands to himself. I’m the one who started it, I’m the one who touched you first, the one who kissed you first.”

“As I said yesterday,” I argued calmly, “Maybe you did, yes. But I let you. Dean, I _wanted_ you to kiss me, to touch me. I could have pushed you away any time, but I didn’t. It’s not your fault.”

“But I started it,” Dean now said with an intense look into my eyes. He was tearing up now, it was only a bit but still visible to me. His eyes were starting to get wet as he talked to me. “I started this yesterday, and I started it all, a couple of weeks ago. It was me, Cas. It’s all on me.”

“Dean-“ I tried to say something, but he didn’t let me.

“We should never have started this in the first place,” he breathed. “It was dangerous, it was a stupid risk we took, and you knew it. You knew it from the very beginning, you were scared of exactly this happening, and you were right. You were right, Cas, you were absolutely right. But I didn’t see it, I thought it would be alright, I really believed that, and God Cas, I’m so sorry”

“Dean,” I tried to tell him again, but again, he cut me off.

“No, Cas,” he said. “No matter how you try to explain it, whatever words you use to try to tell me it wasn’t my fault, it _was_. I know it was, and you know it, too. I was an idiot, an absolute idiot. And I was a selfish asshole, because I dragged you into this even though you _knew_ it would end badly, you knew all the time and I convinced you to give us a chance anyway, just because I wanted it, because I wanted you”

“Dean-“

“Just because I wanted you,” Dean breathed, now visible tears in his eyes. “That was just it. I wanted you, and I was selfish and took what I wanted without even thinking about what that would mean for you. I made you risk so much for me. I didn’t even see why you were so scared about it, I didn’t see it and I didn’t think because I’m just a substitute, so what if I lose this job? I’m not even a teacher, I got nothing to lose. And I didn’t think; Only because I had nothing to lose, I didn’t realize it was different for you, I didn’t understand that you were risking so much more than I did. Getting fired wouldn’t matter for me, whereas for you … I accepted you ruining your entire career, Cas, just because I wanted you. I-“

“Jesus Christ Dean will you please listen to me,” I interrupted him, and this time, finally, he fell silent. He looked at me in silence, giving me room to speak. “Thank you,” I breathed.

I took a moment to collect my thoughts before I spoke.

“Dean,” I started, “I understand that you’re worried. I really do, who would I be to tell you to not worry about it when I’ve been lying awake the whole night panicking about the exact same thing. And I see why you feel guilty. I don’t _understand_ , I don’t agree with the perspective you’re putting this into. Because you didn’t make me do anything, Dean. You signalled to me that you wanted this, and I wanted this as well, and I made a decision. I made an independent decision, Dean. You didn’t influence it, at all. I thought about you, about what I wanted and about all the risks it would bring, and I decided, independently, that it was a risk I was willing to take.”

“Still,” Dean breathed, “You’re the one with an entire career to ruin. I don’t … The consequences are so much worse you than for me”

“Yes,” I quietly agreed, “So? Dean, I knew that. I am a grown man, I make my own decisions. And this was a decision I made, I deliberately chose to take that risk. It’s not your fault.”

“No but it is,” Dean argued, “When you’re losing your job because I couldn’t keep my hand off of you!”

“First of all,” I said calmly, “It is not, as I said before. And second of all, nobody is losing their job, so the sheer discussion of the idea is, frankly, a waste of time”

Dean stared at me for a moment out of his wet eyes.

“You …” he then stuttered. “But he – You’re not fired?”

“No,” I breathed, “I’m not”

“But …” Dean started, but he didn’t continue.

“Yeah,” I said. “He knows. It was him who saw us last night. But I won’t lose my job because of it, and neither will you”

Dean stared for another moment.

“Explain,” he then said quietly.

“He knows,” I shrugged, “he’s suspected it for a while already and when he saw us last night, that was only the final proof. But we talked, and he said that he won’t make a fuss about it. As long as we keep it secret, he won’t make it public either”

“But,” Dean hesitantly tried to understand, “We’ll have to stop seeing each other. We’re allowed to stay and keep our jobs under the condition that we break up”

“No,” I breathed.

“No?”

“No,” I said and couldn’t hold back a hint of a smile. “He won’t make us break up. It’s okay, Dean. He’ll keep our secret, as long as we do as well”

“But … why?” Dean asked, confusion on his face. “I didn’t think he would … I mean, he’s so …”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he fully supports us. He did call me a sinner, after all. It’s more that I’m a popular teacher and he’s not a big fan of rumours”

“He covers for us to avoid a scandal, then?” Dean now understood. “Just to keep the school’s good reputation?”

“Yeah,” I sighed.

We both stayed silent for a while.

“But,” I then said, “Is it important why he lies for us? I mean, we can both keep our jobs, we can still see each other. He won’t make it a problem for us. That great, right? His motives don’t matter”

“You’re right,” Dean said, “Of course. It’s just … I would feel better knowing that he does it because he thinks it’s nothing bad. This way, I know that he still thinks we’re disgusting. He just lets us live in peace for the sake of the school’s reputation. I just … It’s just that”

“Mh,” I sighed in agreement. “Yeah. I get that. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think he thinks we’re disgusting. He’s probably weirded out a bit, and he did tell me that he thinks of it as a sin, but … I talked to him, and he didn’t seem disgusted. We did talk quite a lot, actually. And …” I hesitated, “There was something. When we talked about the way I feel, he … I don’t know, Dean. But it seemed to me as if he understood.”

Dean looked at me for just a second, thinking.

“The way you feel?” he then asked.

I looked back at him with a smile before I leaned in a bit and whispered into his ear:

“I love you”

*

With a quiet sigh, Cas let the pen sink down. He loosened his grip around it to let his hand rest for a moment. He looked down at his hand, his old, thin skin that was covered in countless wrinkles. Many wrinkles, bearing witness of many many years this man had lived already.

He leaned back and glanced down onto the notebook that was opened on the desk in front of him and eyed the last words he had written with a sigh.

“What’s wrong?” there suddenly was a familiar voice behind him, accompanied by an arm softly gripping around his shoulder.

The hand that was now lying on Cas’s chest was old and wrinkled as well, tanner than his own but way thinner and weaker than it had been in an earlier time. He leaned into the touch, resting his head against Dean’s chest.

Cas listened to the other man’s heartbeat for a second, taking in every single beat through his chest.

“It’s exhausting,” he finally answered, quietly, mumbling against Dean’s chest. “My hand is not working as efficiently as it used to”

Dean chuckled, and Cas loved feeling the vibrations in his chest.

“You could always use a computer,” Dean said. “It’s not like you don’t know how to do it”

“I prefer writing by hand,” Cas answered quietly. “You know that”

“Yeah, I do,” Dean smirked. “There have been quite enough publishers complaining about that over the years”

“Yeah,” Cas chuckled. Nothing more.

He felt Dean leaning in a bit, leaning closer over the notebook and taking a peek into it, reading the last few words.

“Mh,” Dean hummed as he recognized the words. “That was one hell of a day”

“It for sure was,” Cas chuckled. “Though, I’m not sure if I’m happy with the style yet. It’s different from what I normally write”

“I’m convinced it’s amazing,” Dean said.

“You always say that,” Cas argued with a smirk.

“Yeah,” Dean smiled, “Because it’s true. I love your writing. I’ve loved all your writing, ever since the very first poem”

“It’s in here,” Cas said quietly, pointing at the notebook. “I included it”

“As you should,” Dean said, “It’s amazing, and it is a big part of the story”

“Yeah,” Cas only breathed with a smile.

Dean held him for a little longer. He only stood there, holding him while Cas was at his chest, again listening to his heartbeat.

“I won’t keep you from working any longer,” Dean then whispered against Cas’s grey hair.

“Okay,” Cas breathed.

Dean leaned in to press a soft kiss on Cas’s forehead. “I love you,” he whispered.

A smile appeared on Cas’s face. “I love you too,” he breathed.

Then, Dean softly let go of him. As he slowly retreated, his steps slow and dragging due to his age, Cas’s eyes followed him.

This was the man he fallen in love with over library visits, walks in the snow and M&Ms countless years ago. They both had grown older, of course, Dean had grown older. There wasn’t anything left to see of the youth he had had back then, but every time Cas looked at him, the young man was still in there somewhere.

Those still were the same green eyes that had looked at him at that one Friday afternoon of an October long gone, that was still the same heart-warming smile.

Every time Cas looked at him, he thought, despite his age, he was still the same man. Still beautiful. Still Dean Winchester.

*

This might be the end of this story, but it was only the beginning of our life together. Even though it had seemed like the end for us earlier that one eventful day, even though I had been so scared of losing him just minutes before that talk, it was in fact only the beginning.

I do like to remember it. I like to remember that day, both of us still so incredibly young, standing there in the snow together. I like to remember how we watched over the snow-covered village together, how I told him for the first time that I love him. I didn’t know at that moment, I could have only hoped, that it would be the first one of many more to come.

I like to remember the rest of that school year, the remaining few months we had at that school together. The quiet afternoons with him in the library, the walks around the fields, the Saturday nights at the bar in the village. His smiles over the dining table, the secretly stolen hugs and kisses, the forbidden nights in my bed.

I like to remember how I got into his car the last day of that school year, and the wonderful summer I spent with him. That summer we told both my uncle and his brother, and it was fine, just as we had expected it to be.

I even like to remember the time I had to spend without him, when I had to return to the school in fall while he stayed in his hometown, still looking for his true passion that he eventually found in being a car mechanic for the rest of his work life. I remember how I missed him, I terribly missed him every single day he wasn’t there with me, giving me silent company in the library or simply smiling at me from across the table. But I also remember the countless letters and phone calls, and the constant anticipation to see him again. The way my heart made leaps of pure joy every time another break came and his car pulled up in front of the school to pick me up.

It was no secret that I stayed in contact with him after his substitute job ended, and I am convinced that most of the other teachers knew, or at least suspected, what was going on. There was Mr. Price of course who eventually developed a soft spot for us. He never mentioned what he obviously knew ever again after that one talk, but the way he used to smile at us every time Dean was there to pick me up was good enough for us. But there were others as well, smiling at us, some mentioning Dean to me and casually asking how he was doing. None of them ever said it, but I am sure that at least some of them knew.

As exciting the waiting for break was, and as much as I loved my job there, I eventually got tired of not being physically close to him. A thing that long-distance relationships unfortunately bring. We made it to two more school years until I finally quit my job to be near him.

We did move in together at the house he had inherited from his father, and while he lived his passion as a car mechanic in his hometown, I found a new position as a teacher a town over. We built ourselves a nice life together.

Even though I haven’t been back to the school in decades, and most of the people that had been around me there are long dead by now, I still like to think back to my time there. This place has given me a lot, after all, more than I could have ever asked for.

It gave me a job I loved, of course. It gave me unique memories that I hold dear in my heart. But most importantly, it gave me the love of my life.

Six decades have passed since I looked into Dean Winchester’s beautiful eyes for the very first time, but searching for them still is the first thing I do every morning I wake up. And every single day when he looks at me, I feel like I’m 27 again, meeting that wonderful man for the very first time in front of the school we’re both teaching at. And every single day, I fall in love with him all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... and that was the final chapter!  
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me and this story the past couple of weeks, and thank you for every single kudos and comment <3  
> Some people had pointed out the first-person narration in early chapters already, and as you can see now, I was trying something out with that - I hope I made it work, at least a bit :)  
> I also hope you liked this final chapter (Please let me know your thoughts)  
> Again, thank you so much for reading, and maybe we'll see each other again on another story ;)


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